


Empty Words

by Cryptidneet, viceversa



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, F/M, Fluff, Hurt/Comfort, Occasional Fan Art, Seattle, TBI, art collab
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-21
Updated: 2019-06-28
Packaged: 2019-09-24 05:52:22
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 12
Words: 24,958
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17095076
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cryptidneet/pseuds/Cryptidneet, https://archiveofourown.org/users/viceversa/pseuds/viceversa
Summary: “It doesn’t matter, Mulder. They’re all just… empty words. We can understand each other without all of this, just, please.”Mulder and Scully are diligently working a case in downtown Seattle when Mulder is injured. Hospitals, frustration, and an inability to speak test the strength of their new relationship. Featuring art by cryptidneet!





	1. Prologue

It had started not at all like she had thought. Of course she’d thought about it, hundreds of times over the years. Some in seriousness, where she would compose big speeches and conversations in her head where she would tell him her feelings and convince him that being together was the best possible option. Other fantasies were, well, less verbose and a little more physical.

The way it actually happened fell somewhere in between the two extremes.

On a blustery, freezing, snowy day in February, the day after her birthday to be exact, Mulder showed up at Scully’s apartment. She honestly thought this birthday would go like the rest. Dinner with her mother, a few gifts, and no acknowledgement from Mulder. The usual dinner took place the night before, her mother gifting her with new gloves and a pair of beautiful earrings and passing on cards from Bill and Charlie.

Scully had expected to spend the day warmly indoors, curled up on the couch and catching up on paperwork and reading. Instead, she was interrupted late-afternoon with Mulder, take-out for dinner, and talking into the night.

“I didn’t really get you a real present,” Mulder admitted. They had moved to her couch and were enjoying a bottle of wine from Scully’s kitchen.

“Honestly, Mulder, this was more than I expected.” Scully laughed, sated with food, drink, and welcome company. She turned to look at him as he started speaking again, but couldn’t bring herself to pay attention to his words. He was wearing a new dark green sweater. Huh. It fit him. Very well.

“—and then Frohike tried to recover the file, but the orange soda was making the mainframe spark—”

Mulder’s face was cleanshaven, even though it was a weekend. In her many years as his partner, she knew his routines, and he usually didn’t shave on the weekend, even if they were on a case. Scully stretched to put her empty glass on the table behind the couch and moved closer to Mulder as she settled back down. He shaved and dressed to come over here. For her.

The steady train of his words skipped as she got closer, but he kept speaking like nothing had happened.

“—So then Langley and Byers were carrying the computer tower down the stairs, but somehow Frohike managed to slip on the soda and he nearly took out both of them—"

What was that smell? Scully shifted a little closer, sniffing at Mulder from just a few inches away. Was that his shampoo? His aftershave? It was just like those “Boyfriend Flannel” candles at the mall—and, God, did it smell good.

“Can you believe it? I didn’t, but then Langley showed me the footage! It was a move that made me question the laws of physics. Honestly, you have to see it, next time you—” Mulder finally stopped gesticulating and looked to Scully, suddenly realizing that they were practically nose to nose.

“Scully?”

She snapped out of her trance and made eye contact, and for a second, she was frozen.

“Scul—”

She leaned up and kissed him full on the lips, unable to resist whether due to wine or just pure readiness. Mulder took a second to register what was happening before he responded enthusiastically.

A slow, gentle friction of mouths turned into nipping lips, arms around shoulders, hands in hair, breathing heavy as their tongues met for the first time.

Scully backed away to breathe, but kept close with her hands still on Mulder’s shoulders.  
Mulder cleared his throat. “Well, uh, that was…”

“That was what, Mulder?” Scully’s voice had taken on a husky tone that made Mulder’s eyes dilate.

“Perfect, that was perfect,” he let out in a rush. “Let’s, uh, can we do that again?”

Scully nodded tilted her head back, waiting for him to initiate this time.

He didn’t disappoint.

\- - -

The next few weeks were awkward and perfect all at once. Mulder would show up late to her apartment, a file in hand, and wouldn’t leave until the early hours of the morning. Scully would follow Mulder’s car home after work with the promise to finish paperwork, and they’d end up finishing more than just that.

Much to their surprise and happiness, this paradigm shift didn’t change too much about their everyday life. Once, in between the file cabinets in the basement, Scully nearly screamed in fright because she thought someone was knocking on the office door. It turned out that it was just Mulder rocking the cabinets together. After that incident, they vowed to keep their personal life out of the basement. A resolution which they both followed strictly for all of three days.

March was a month of fun and change. It seemed never ending. Scully, unused to having a relationship that wasn’t a constant battle, was starting to wonder when it would go wrong. It sounded dramatic, she knew, but her track record wasn’t amazing and her and Mulder were so different. It’s not like they had declared anything to each other. No big speeches, no three little words. They just… were.

Mulder was counting his lucky stars. He never realized he had them, but something up there was allowing this to happen, allowing him to be with Scully—who wanted him!—and it seemed perfect. So, naturally, he knew it was probably about to go to hell in a handbasket at any time.

But, it seemed to work, so far. It worked at their homes, it worked at work, it even worked when they were reassigned to the records department for two weeks to help with a massive reorganizing initiative. Now, as April started to drizzle over a melting D.C., they were finally back in their basement office.

“Scully!” Mulder greeted. “Ever been to Seattle?”

Scully finished taking off her coat and accepted a coffee Mulder. He had become slightly more thoughtful since they had gotten together, and it was a good color on him. Her coffee was just as she liked it.

Seattle. As much as she missed the sun and the ocean of San Diego, Scully loved the Pacific Northwest. She had visited a few times during her college days, reluctant to go to the busy beaches of the south or abroad. There was something about the quiet atmosphere, the calm clouds hovering a little too close to the tops of trees, the salty and cold sea air, the cloudy sky that always held the promise of a quick downpour, an oasis of coffee and fresh sea air.

“Yes, a few times. What have we got?”

“A monster lurking in the downtown streets, ripping people apart, leaving no trace behind.” Mulder gesticulated, hyping the case with a little flair.

In the same atmosphere where Scully found peace, Mulder sought out the unusual and unlikely. He saw Sasquatch in the beautiful forests, aliens just above the low cloud line, myth and mystery in the cold beaches and valley towns. In a sense it was his oasis as well.

“The usual, then.” Scully smiled at him over the rim of her cup, setting it down as he approached.

“Exactly!” Mulder handed over the file and Scully started flipping through.

The case file, through Mulder’s ever-present paranormal filter, had become an X file. Someone, or as Mulder insisted something, was brutally murdering and dismembering people, and then leaving the remains in downtown Seattle. Mulder claimed that superhuman strength and animalistic instinct were key in the case, pulling files on any number or cryptids that could be at work. Scully thought differently.

“Mulder, these limbs were not ripped off. More likely, they were chopped or sawed off. I’ll need to examine the corpses to be sure.”

“Ripped, sawed, semantics Scully,” Mulder mumbled playfully. He perked up with a thought, just now waking up. “So you’re good with taking the case?”

Scully was amused as always at his enthusiasm. “Well, someone dismembered these people, man or beast,” she conceded, “and besides, it’ll give me a chance to pack my new flannel shirts.”

This would be their first case across the country since this change in their relationship. It would be a test, especially with how complex this case was promising to be.

Scully was just happy to be going somewhere urban—plus it would be more difficult to get a crappy motel in downtown Seattle and she’d take any break she could when it comes to sleeping arrangements. This job had drug her through the woods and swamp and mountains more times than she had thought possible, but in a city she felt grounded. Especially in a city surrounded by so much water.

Puget Sound may not be the tumultuous and cold sea of the true coast, but the air was fresh and clean, and Scully was looking forward to whatever was going to come at them next, together.

Mulder advanced on Scully. “Really Scully? We’re flying across the country to solve several murders and you’re thinking about being comfy?”

She scoffed and crossed her arms. “Please, Mulder. D.C. is not exactly the ideal climate type. Too muggy. If you’re dragging me out to the west coast to hunt cryptids then I’m going to enjoy my stay as much as possible.”

Mulder rolled his eyes affectionately and brought a standoffish Scully into a hug.  
“Is this where I’m supposed to say ‘yes, dear’?”

Scully reluctantly smiled and uncrossed her arms, giving him half a hug before turning out of his embrace and picking up the case file again. Not at work, she was trying to be good, but she’d like to continue that later.

“I’ll book the flight!”

Mulder settled behind the desk and Scully opposite him. The morning proceeded quietly, both sipping coffee and trading sections of the file back and forth like a married couple would the paper over breakfast, making notes and commenting on each other’s theories. Seattle, here they come.


	2. Chapter 2

This was the first case that brought them out of D.C. since they started, well, whatever it was they were starting. Since then things have been, if Scully had to pick a word, casual. If Scully had to pick more than one word, included in the list would surely be confusing, cautious, simple, perfect, amazing, uncertain, and maybe just a little too casual.

But Scully was happy. And she thought that Mulder was happy too. Happy that this tension or whatever between them has been addressed. They had spent days and evenings and nights together for over a month, but they existed without labels or talking about their future. Which was fine. Really.

Well. Maybe.

Scully was actively tamping down the urge to force a ‘let’s talk about what we are’ conversation because she didn’t want to screw anything up. Sure, she was nervous about what it could turn into, or not into. Her thoughts spiraled—what if they just sort of… fizzled out? Or what if they remained distant, friends with benefits, until he found someone else? Deep down she knew it wasn’t so simple, that he wouldn’t just abandon her, but she still wanted that verbal confirmation. Communications. Words. Not this uncertainty in feeling.

Where were the instant fireworks, tumbling into bed for hot sex, together forever, confessing undying love moments she always imagined? She supposed those were better label as fancy or dreams. This was, surprisingly, an actual relationship. A relationship with hot sex. Not something blazing and passionate out of a movie or novel, thought there were passionate moments. This was going to be work, just like their friendship and partnership had always been work. More so on her end, accepting Mulder’s crazy, his moods, his baggage. Not that she didn’t have her own crazy and baggage for him as well. At this point, so far in their lives, she had almost enough baggage to put them on even footing.

Equals. Equals in a relationship with their own mutually understood shit.

Still undefined. Still not quite where she wanted to be. But for god’s sake at least they were together now, and she was perfectly okay with that.

\- - -

Seattle welcomed them with a refreshing wind from the nearby water and wonderful coffee, even in the local police station. A man (or beast or thing, as Mulder tried to rationalize on the plane ride over, his hand high on her thigh, his voice a little too low so she had to lean into him to hear) was terrorizing downtown Seattle.

Once they arrived at the station, the local detective in charge filled them in on the updates they had missed while traveling.

“Another body was found this morning,” Detective Mark Pulaski informed the two agents, handing over the aforementioned delicious coffee. Pulaski was tall, dark, and just this side of handsome, a little too young and green to fill out the role completely.

Scully beamed slightly as she accepted her cup. “Thank you, Detective.” She took a long sip as they moved into the conference room. “Same as the others?”

“Call me Mark, please,” the detective winked at Scully, who barely hid a grimace.

He was one of those. Great.

Mulder didn’t drink his coffee, for some reason, potentially pertaining to an overly appreciative local detective, and abandoned it on a nearby filing cabinet as Pulaski continued.

“Same M.O. as the others. C.O.D slit throat. Dismembered at the knee and elbow joints after the victim died, all the body parts left at the dumpsite, which was an alley in a slightly less that nice area of our fine city.”

Pulaski ended his briefing with a joke only he found funny. Drawing on her years of experience with Mulder, Scully resisted rolling her eyes at the slick half-charm of the cocky detective.

Mulder audibly scoffed and asked for the new file, abruptly enough that Scully had to elbow him to remind him to behave and cooperate with the locals. She mainly didn’t want to see another local cop take a swing at her partner. He had enough concussions for this lifetime, he didn’t need to go volunteering for more.

The case went fairly routine for them after the initial briefing. They commandeered a conference room, spread out the files, and spent hours poring over the evidence. The dismembering took place at the dumpsite, and the murder likely not far off. Scully agreed with the coroners that it was a small axe or hatchet that did the work, and Mulder agreed with her when she said it must be a strong and confident son-of-a-bitch that did the deed.

Previous jokes about monsters ripping limbs went unrepeated as they looked through the gruesome photos and lack of leads. Mulder put together a partial profile, Scully retraced old leads and spent time reviewing the previous autopsies, assisting on the newest as well.

They slowly made a corner of the precinct their own. A conference room, the coffee maker nearby, the bathroom down the hall. They walked it, paced the rooms, made rounds to jog their thinking. Mulder nested in the conference room especially, moving pictures and maps back and forth on the walls, writing and rewriting notes on whiteboards. He had a few shirts laying around, half a sandwich hidden under copies of files and behind empty mugs.

Scully wrote notes and reports in the room, close by if Mulder needed her or needed someone to talk to. She had an end of the conference table cleared. They ate, talked, and one afternoon, napped, in that room together.

Pulaski was a constant fly in their area, buzzing in and out with remarks that usually were not that helpful. He was busy with multiple cases, but he seemed to find the time to follow Scully around the precinct. He would pop up as soon as she was alone. She could tell he was smitten and it was annoying, but nothing she wasn’t used to. In the first day and a half she’d sized him up to be harmless, if a bit of a dick, and mostly ignored his subtext, replying professionally and politely, if a bit coolly.

Sometimes that ice queen background of hers came in handy.

It seemed to work, to some extent. Pulaski didn’t lean into her as much when they spoke, and the visits slowed and became slightly more professional. When she could spare a thought from the case, it was a little amusing to see Mulder get puffed up and jealous. She didn’t allow herself the pleasure of feeling flattered before their new foray into relationship territory. Truth be told, she was always annoyed that he felt he had any right to be jealous at all. But now the attention was actually nice, proof of his feelings and, hopefully, intentions toward her.

Not that she didn’t feel jealous before as well. Detective White came to mind. Bambi. Diana. She just had a better time of hiding it. Maybe.

It was nice, this obvious jealousy coming from Mulder, but still fell under the category of unspoken vows and feelings. Half-drunk on no sleep and too much of Seattle’s best coffee, Scully mused about taking direct action. Just swooping in to the conference room with new results or an old file, casually dropping in the fact that she was in love with him before moving back to the bloody crime scene photos.

But work continued on as it always had, the undercurrent of emotion still mostly hidden, the ache for each other a little more raw and pressing, especially when they went to their separate beds at night, if they made it back to the motel at all.

\- - -

Day six and no leads. Mulder was going stir crazy, desperate for a location or clue that he could chase down. There was nothing he could do with the information anymore. As much as he hated it, he needed another victim to gather more evidence. It was so late it was almost early and they should be sleeping, but they both decided to go over the evidence one more time, trying to find a new lead. Anything to leave the damn police station with the damn coffee and the damn Detective Pulaski.

Scully walked in to Mulder spinning restlessly in a conference room chair. He slowed at the sight of her, wanting nothing more than to solve this case, go back to the motel, and not let her out of his sight or grasp for three days. He needed her, now even more so because he knew he could have her. And what it was like to have her, to feel her, to love her and be loved by her.

Well, he assumed. They hadn’t particularly discussed much, but she was his as much as he hers. But, work relationships could be messy as hell and end up disastrous, as they both had experienced in the past, and they needed to have boundaries, at least in the beginning. Mulder felt like the beginning had been gone through. When would they stop being so careful?

“Pulaski stopped me in the hall, they think they’ve got another body. Fresh scene.”

Mulder perked up. “Same as the others?”

Scully looked grimly satisfied. “It’s our guy, but he’s getting sloppy. Only two of the limbs were severed, the third partially done, and it was a rush job. Someone stumbled into the alley drunk and scared him off.”

“Excellent, let’s go.”

They rushed out of the station, catching a ride in one of the sleek detective cars to the scene. It was almost the same as the others: body found in the alley, male, late 20s, throat slit, left leg and arm separated from his body and placed along his side, and right arm half-severed, connected sickeningly by flesh, an axe coated in blood glinting in the light near the head.

Mulder didn’t look too closely.

Instead, he looked around the alley as it was slowly being lit by bright crime scene lights and let Scully do her part with the gore.

Only minutes after they started processing the scene and interviewing the person who found the body, a commotion started at the far end of the alleyway.

An officer had been canvassing the area in search of clues and instead got the surprise of his career when a hulking six-foot-three beast of a man appeared out of nowhere, hurled himself at him, and knocked him to the ground.

Mulder was as close as anyone and half the force at the scene began pursuit, his long legs quickly giving him the lead, Scully not too far behind. Shouts from all of them, freeze, police, stop where you are, were met with silence as the suspect tore his way through the back alleys he knew well. Soon, even Mulder was struggling to keep up.

He stopped for a moment, not sure if the suspect turned left or right, until he heard a clang down to his left. The alleys were not lit at all, but the noise came from the pure darkness of a dead end. Mulder pulled out his gun and started slinking into the shadows, staying along the wall, noting that he was alone, having lost the others in the chase. He paused, holding his breath, waiting for movement, a noise, anything. A beat passed in silence.

Just as Mulder was about to tell the suspect to come out with his hands up, the perp rushed past him, throwing a pipe at his head. Mulder dodged the pipe, shoved his gun away, and was only a second behind him as the suspect doubled back down the main alley.

Adrenaline makes Mulder a hair faster and he jumps, catching the suspects legs in a tackle. They struggled, the hulking man catching Mulder with his heavy boots and strong elbows. Mulder flailed for his gun, for handcuffs, for a second of the upper hand, but the guy had eighty pounds of fat and muscle on him that Mulder lacked. The suspect grunted, turned, and and managed to sock Mulder across the jaw so hard with a right hook he saw stars and landed on all fours, breathless. The perp rose above him, panting.

Scully and Detective Pulaski round the corner, guns drawn, just in time to witness the murderer pick Mulder’s dizzy and bruised body up by the back of the pants and the collar of his jacket and slam him headfirst into the concrete wall beside them. 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> art by the talented @cryptidneet  
> and please please comment! we live for it!!


	3. Chapter 3

Watching in horror, Scully and Pulaski shout for the suspect to stand down, guns drawn, putting Mulder’s limp body out of their head to focus on arresting the murderer in front of them who is finally aware that he is outnumbered.

_He’s not moving, he’s not moving_ , supplies Scully’s peripheral vision. She covers Pulaski as they approach the perp. _Please, God, Mulder, please move._ _Don’t be dead._ Laser focus on the giant in front of her. She shouts again, stand down, on the ground, echoed by Pulaski, and the perp makes a move like he’s going to run and he flinches half an inch toward Mulder’s unmoving body and Scully shoots him in the shoulder just as Pulaski puts a bullet through his knee.

With a shout so loud it pinpoints their location to lost officers in the maze of alleyways, the suspect falls in pain, luckily away from Mulder’s prone form. Scully covers with her gun drawn for as long as it takes Pulaski to cuff him and for the others to arrive before she turns to Mulder.

It was only seconds, maybe two minutes, since he went down. It was an unbearable wait. Her hands hover over his unmoving body for seconds.

A crack of a radio. “We need two buses! Alley off of 12th, between Westhaven and Oak.”

_Help is on its way. Will it be here in time? Will it be enough?_

Scully barely restrains herself from reaching down and flipping him over in case of a neck injury. The sound his head made, smacking into the wall, it will haunt her. Scenarios run through her mind: broken neck, cracked skull, broken bones, paralyzed, hemorrhage, death. Death. Scully kneels.

Her hands shake, hovering above his body. She clenches them, stifling the tremble, before gently running her fingers along the side of his neck, checking his pulse.

It exists. It’s strong. He’s breathing. He’s not dead. She breathes again.

\- - -

The ambulance ride was a blur, as they always are, to her. Scully had scrambled into the back after him, shouting her credentials, the paramedic barely having time to help her in before she was already there. The paramedic, his nametag reading Jamil, and her worried over Mulder, but he was stable the whole way through, just unconscious. A severe concussion, brain damage, worse, all flying through Scully’s mind as the torrent of worst-case scenarios she usually deals with in her job. She feels her way down his ribcage, not feeling anything broken. She does the same with his left arm and shoulder, the side most impacted – again coming up clean. His collarbone could’ve shattered, his arm could’ve snapped. But it didn’t.

It was just his neck, his head, his face. Containing the most important parts of him.

Scully moves her hands to his forehead, smoothing back the hair she can reach, hoping. It’s all she can do.

He wakes up scant minutes from the hospital, according to the driver who has been shouting back updates the whole ride. Scully doesn’t notice at first, too concentrated on his pulse and his steadily rising chest, monitoring his vitality, praying in her head. Mulder flails his hand a little and tries to move his head but the neck brace immobilizes him. It’s a moment of panic but also abject relief that he isn’t paralyzed – Scully takes note of all of his limbs moving in his struggle.

Scully whips her head toward his once she sees him move all over, and watches the paramedic shine a pen light into his eyes. For seconds, she’s unable to get into his eyeline and she knows, she can absolutely feel, that he’s starting to panic. She grasps his hand harder and words finally come to her.

“Mulder! Mulder it’s me, you’re going to be okay.” The paramedic moves back, the same stoic face as he’s had this whole time moving with some worry, but he allows her to move to his eyeline. Once his eyes see her he relaxes and then grimaces.

“Mulder, can you hear me?” She sees him try to nod, and start to speak but he can’t. Small, broken noises issue from his mouth and as he moves his tongue, a stream of bright red blood escapes from his mouth.

The bottom of Scully’s stomach drops out and hits the road at 50 miles per hour, but Mulder’s breathing never varies. She doubts he even knows about the blood – probably from the inside of his cheek. It’s grotesque, like a horror movie, coating his teeth and running along his cheek, soaking into the pad of the neck brace. She can see in her head the impact of his face against the wall, the ground, can imagine the impact making his teeth slice into the inner lining of his mouth.

Scully hopes that this is the worst of it.

“Shh, Mulder, it’s okay. We’re almost to the ER. Just try to relax.” She scrambles for more to say, needing to reassure him. She’s conscious of her one hand still firmly in his grasp, her other grasping the gurney by his head for support. She wishes she could hold his face in her hands, run her fingers through her hair. Just a few days ago, he’d admitted that he always loved it when she did that. She remembers admitting that she almost never needed to, medically. That night was especially wonderful and raw and honest. She craved another like it, a thousand more.

“We got the guy,” she settled on. “Big sonofabitch. But we got him. No one else was hurt. You did great, really great, finding him. You’re going to be okay. Just stay awake, don’t panic, we’re almost there. I’m here. I’m here, Mulder.”

Scully continued the ramble with Mulder’s rapt and full attention, blood still trickling from the corner of his mouth where his tongue unconsciously pushed it out so he could breathe, eyes tearing up at the pain he’s no doubt undergoing. _Scully, Scully_ , he thought. _Help me._

\- - -

The longest and fastest minutes in her lifetime have both occurred in ambulances and in Emergency Rooms, usually one after the other. The ambulance ride is long, too long, and the journey from the ambulance bay to the doors she’s not allowed through is much too fast. She’s directed to a waiting room before she can recover from Mulder’s hand being taken from her grasp.

The team that engulfed him as they entered the ER bay had dismissed her immediately, even her insistence that she was a medical doctor. “No family in the trauma room, ma’am,” and they had a nurse escort her away to fill out paperwork.

She fills out the forms efficiently, standing at the nurse’s station and keeping half an eye on the glass window between Mulder and her. Knowing his information by heart, the forms are completed fast and handed over without a word.

Approaching the room he was in, she barely kept herself from going through the trauma room door and forcibly helping the team. He was still conscious, she could see his eyes shifting back and forth and she expected to hear him call out to her, but nothing.

It was too quiet. What was wrong?

The last time he was in a neck brace he was practically frantic, shouting for Scully until she came into his eyesight. Neither of them had the best experiences being strapped to a table against their will.

But this time Mulder was just looking around, grotesquely pushing blood out of his mouth, his arms and legs moving restlessly when they could as the trauma team moved around him. Heart monitors and oxygen attached, reflexes checked, eyes checked and rechecked. A wad of gauze stuffed into his cheek. He had a severe concussion, how could he not? But what was the other damage? He needed a head CT, an MRI, anything. He needed her – The sudden rapid movement in the room in front of her snapped Scully out of her frustrated diagnosis chain.

Mulder was seizing.

Scully clapped her hands over her mouth, eyes welling with the tears and escaping immediately, feeling absolute shock and pain set into her core, feeling herself go numb and blaze with emotion all at once. _Oh, God, no._

The one rational corner of her brain left functioning, stamped in there by years of medical training to think clearly in extreme situations, tried to calm the rest of her head. Mulder had an extreme head injury, likely causing some internal bruising or bleeding, which easily could’ve triggered convulsions. He was susceptible to them, to say the least. Not much is more terrifying that seeing his muscles shake uncontrollably, contorting, eyes rolled back, flinching with his full body.

But, it was likely just a one-off, right, and the problem would be reversed soon, it had to, and _good God Mary and Joseph please make it stop_! With an injection and some time, the violent shaking of Mulder’s body slowed and eventually stopped, leaving Mulder limp and unconscious once more.

Still reeling she barely notices the doctors surrounding him shouting orders, and they wheel him away. A nurse or intern or someone in the know corners her before she can chase after him.

“Ma’am? Ma’am?”

Scully rips her eyes from Mulder’s retreating bed. “Yes. What tests are you taking him for? He’ll need a CT, an MRI, is his neck okay? What about the bleeding in his mouth?”

“Ma’am, let’s go over here.” The young nurse guides Scully by her upper arm a short way down the hall, the opposite direction from where Mulder had been taken. The waiting area is empty and small, and Scully doesn’t bother sitting when she knows she’s just going to pace until Mulder is okay again.

“Ma’am—”

Scully cuts her off. “Scully. Agent Scully. I’m a medical doctor, his doctor, and his partner.”

“Agent Scully, your friend has suffered a serious blow to the head, possibly compromising his neck as well. We will know more once the tests come back. As for his mouth, he may need stitches. We’re mostly worried about his head injury.”

“Does he need surgery?” Scully interrupted again. She knew she was asking for too much information too soon, but she couldn’t stop herself.

“We won’t know until the scans come back, but it doesn’t look extremely likely as of right now. The impact may have fractured his skull. There will be swelling, but we won’t know more until more tests are done, until he wakes up.”

It took Scully a moment to process this information, her eyes scanning the ugly carpeting back and forth, not really seeing it at all. “And-and the seizure? He’s not epileptic, but he has a history. It was years ago, also trauma related,” she added. “Possibly some as a child, no natural recurrence.”

“It was likely induced because of the head trauma, but we will keep an eye on him for any recurrences. Until we know more, you can wait in here. I’ll come back with any news.”

The nurse was gone before she could interrogate her more and then Scully was left alone.


	4. Chapter 4

Hours later, Detective Pulaski arrived at the hospital to find Agent Dana Scully staring into space. He took in her presence, used to seeing it on the victims and their family members when something unthinkably horrendous has happened. It was more difficult to reconcile the strong, attractive agent he’d come to know with the broken robot in front of him.

She sat straight backed in the chair, braced for whatever news would come her way, keeping any emotion hidden.

Not that Pulaski would ever say it to her face, at least not now, but her jeans-flannel-light makeup look earlier in the day was beautiful and to him, it was even downright sexy. Post all-day work, suspect chase, bloodied partner, ambulance ride, and extended time in a hospital waiting area, she was looking tired to say the least.

“Dana.”

Pulaski’s rough voice interrupted Scully’s reverie and her eyes snapped up to see him standing in front of her. How long had he been there? She stood up, brushing nonexistent lint from her lap as she did.

Little did Pulaski fathom, Dana Scully didn’t give one single shit as to what he thought of her, and was actually happy to see this case end so they didn’t need to interact again. The professionalism she had shown him was more than enough civility, and she now regarded him as a messenger and nothing more.

“Detective.”

Pulaski shifted from foot to foot, also exhausted at the day but with an air of satisfaction. They’d caught the guy tonight, no matter how it all shakes out, and that was good enough for him.

“Suspect’s fine. He was taken here as well, bandaged up and checked by the docs in just a couple hours, both just flesh wounds. We’re in the process of getting all the paperwork together so we can discharge him and take him back to be processed. He’ll be here overnight at least. Don’t want to mess it up.”

Scully nodded, pleased to know the Seattle PD weren’t skipping steps on this one. This bastard better be put away forever if she had anything to say about it.

“Any updates on Agent Mulder?” Pulaski didn’t seem overly concerned, but he did ask.

“Nothing since they took him,” she paused to look at her watch. “Three hours ago,” she sighed out. She had half a mind to track down that nurse and get some answers.

Pulaski looked a little taken aback. “Well I didn’t think a little knock on the head was going to keep him here overnight.”

Scully looked up, incredulous. “A little knock—? Mark, we both saw what that guy did to Mulder. There wasn’t anything little about it.”

Pulaski shrugged, seemingly unruffled. Before he could respond another cop called his name. They were ready to transport the perp. He said his goodbyes and best wishes to Scully and left. Scully wasn’t sad to see him go.

She looked around, noticing that there were more people in the waiting room with her now. Both people were also solitary, speaking quietly on the phone with someone. She also realized that she hadn’t called to check in.

Disregarding the late hour, she dialed Skinner’s desk phone. She’d give the bare minimum details and get his call back in the morning.

“Sir, it’s Agent Scully. I have a few updates. We caught the perp tonight, he’s currently in custody with the Seattle PD. In the process of the chase and arrest, Agent Mulder was assaulted by the perp. I’m… currently at the hospital with him. We’ll know more in a few hours but, sir, I believe we might be here for a while so he can recover.” She paused for a second. “It was a bad one. His head… I’ll call when I know more information.”

She snapped her phone closed and shut her eyes, suddenly hit with a wave of pure exhaustion. It had been an unending week. A list formed in her head. She needed to finish the paperwork, write up a report and submit it. Her laptop and papers were back at the precinct. Maybe Pulaski could have a rookie send their things over. She definitely wasn’t leaving right now.

Riding the quiet wave of strength that was keeping her awake, she dialed the precinct and left a message requesting their things be sent to the hospital as soon as possible. His jacket, her bag, their files, the laptop. She’d need it sooner or later anyway.

She barely had a chance to put her phone down when it rang in her hand. Skinner. She answered, not too surprised that he’d gotten the message after all. D.C. was a few hours ahead of them anyway.

“Sir,” she greeted.

“Agent Scully, how bad is he?”

Scully rubbed her eyes, partially to stall for time and partially to cover up the world around her. Light was beginning to sneak through the windows at the far end of the emergency room. It shouldn’t be daytime, it should still be night. Daytime meant that hours had passed – too many hours.

“I don’t know yet. They’ve been running tests and doing scans for hours. But it was bad enough to trigger some… bad side effects.” FBI Agents can’t have seizures, her mind supplied. As much as she trusted Skinner, there was little chance he wouldn’t put that in the report. They’d have to wait and make sure it was an isolated incident before she said anything. “He was unconscious when they took him away.”

Skinner let out a sigh, frustration and worry evident, too early in the morning. “Are you alright, Dana? Do I need to come out there or do you have this handled?”

Scully was a little taken aback. She expected to be drilled for information, timeline, everything. Instead, and lucky her, she got to speak with her friend Walter instead of her supervisor Skinner. Was she alright? Far from it. Could she handle it? There wasn’t an option not to.

“I’m fine, sir, really. I’ve got it handled.  The case is over, and most of the paperwork will be completed by the local PD. Thank you, though.”

“I’ll put the paperwork through for Mulder, two-week medical leave with a possibility for extension. I assume you will want to take some leave as well?”

She answered in the affirmative and Skinner agreed to push that request through as well. Promising to call later with an update, Scully repeated her thanks and got off the phone.

Not energized but newly alert, Scully informs the nurse’s station of her phone number for when they have an update and goes on a search for coffee. Hallways slide past her peripheral, slipping by in that too-fast-too-slow vision you get when you’re tired and dreading staying awake, dreading the news.

Utterly helpless.

There’s nothing, absolutely nothing, that she can do for Mulder at this instant. Nothing but be here for him and pray. And she already did that. Or she’s doing it, constantly, in the back of her head. Some part of her believes she started years ago and never stopped. Maybe it has helped, has kept him as safe as possible. Maybe it’s finally failed her.

\- - -

Hours passed under harsh fluorescent lighting. Scully drifted, staring into space, wanting to go and to stay at the same time, the anxiety of no information wearing on her. Knowing nothing was going to drag her away from this spot.

Finally, in the just as early morning was giving way to sunshine, a nurse came into the waiting area and called her name.

She raised to her feet, too quickly, and had to steady herself on the arm of the chair next to her. The nurse approaches her first and starts speaking in a no-nonsense tone that Scully deeply appreciated.

“Ma’am, we’ve moved Mr. Mulder to a room in the ICU. I can show you where to go.”

Too exhausted to interrogate the woman, Scully followed her to the far north elevators and listened to directions to get out on the second floor, turn left twice, and follow the blue line to the ICU, and the nurses there would direct her to his room.

Walking fast down endless hallways as directed, Scully repressed her continuing déjà vu and tried to focus. Focus on Mulder, focus on staying awake. She had a difficult time walking in a straight line.

Scully questioned the nurse that led her to Mulder’s room thoroughly. The head trauma alone was cause for great concern – what would happen? With brain injuries, the nurse reminded her, they wouldn’t know until he woke up. But, seeing the desperation in Scully’s eyes, the nurse recounted everything that she knew about.

“I was there when they brought him up from the ER, after his seizure. He was unconscious for the first few scans, from exhaustion and the anti-seizing meds, and was briefly awake during transport.”

The nurse paused in the hall, just before Mulder’s door. Scully turned to her, wanting her to continue before she went in to his room.

“I don’t know if this is cause for concern, it could’ve been any number of things, but he was trying to speak when he was awake.”

“Trying?” Scully rasped.

“He could move his mouth and lips, and his jaw enough, but he wasn’t making any sounds. He couldn’t answer our questions. The usual: What is your name, who is the president.” The nurse took a breath, looking at Scully with sympathy. “I think he knew, but he just couldn’t physically say. Our team knows about this, just in case it becomes a problem later, but I did not want you to be alarmed if he woke up and could not speak. It is likely a temporary issue, if it is an issue at all.”

Scully took in this news with a nod, her lips pressed firmly together, brain working out every possible reason and complication for this potential problem.

“As you know, Dr. Scully, the possible complications from a severe concussion are unpredictable, but he’s in the best neuro unit on the west coast. Try not to worry.”

Scully nodded slightly again, straightening up.

With that, the woman left Scully to enter Mulder’s room on her own.


	5. Chapter 5

Stillness is such a paradox. A liminality. It can be a good thing, the stillness of an afternoon, basking in the sun. Still waters running deep. Sleeping next to a loved one. The opposite meaning was stronger somehow, the still air before a storm, the stillness after a fight, the stillness of death. It’s how Mulder looked when Scully walked in: Dead. Pale. Unmoving. His chest barely shifting beneath the thick blankets, his left arm elevated slightly on a pillow. If not for the steady beeping readouts on the machines around him, Scully would’ve felt like she was walking in to identify his body.

It was the exhaustion, pushing her to these poetics, but the feeling was real, the urgency to feel his pulse under her touch. The room spun, but she reached out to him all the same.

He was warm, thank God. Scully’s hospital-cold fingers felt like they were burning on his skin. She ran her the back of her free hand against his cheek, surveying the darkening bruises emerging from his hairline down along his jaw. The stillness transformed into waiting, waiting again just in a different room, but it was better because at least she was with Mulder. She could take a breath. Scully needed Mulder as much as it seemed he needed her. He had told her as much, a few weeks ago lying next to each other in his surprisingly plush bed.

_“Don’t you know how much I need you Scully? Every single second? Not always by my side, but in my life. By my side is always better, though.”_

Scully jumped from her memory when her cell rang against her hip. Skinner.

“Sir,” she answered.

“Agent Scully. Do you have an update since we last spoke? I know it’s still early on that coast.”

Scully cleared her throat, suddenly feeling a sense of place. This hospital room was in Seattle, the west coast, the opposite side of the country from home. She slid into the seat next to Mulder. The chair was the same design as the waiting room.

“Yes. The scans came back as clean as they can be, so no surgery is needed as of right now, but he’ll be hospitalized at least 48 hours so they can monitor the potential brain trauma.” Scully took pride in not letting her voice waiver over ‘brain trauma.’ “We might be here a while. The two-week medical leave, you already put it through?”

“Yes. Submitted and approved, along with your personal time.”

Scully sighed and closed her eyes. “Thank you. We… I’m not currently optimistic that we will be back by then. Traveling with this kind of injury is difficult, and we don’t know the extent—”

“Don’t worry about it, Agent. Just take care of him. We’ll reassess when we need to. Now, get some rest. You’ll need it.”

“Thank you, Walter.”

\- - -

“From the initial scan, the internal damage seems localized. This area of the brain contains Broca's area, which could be part of the problem of speech difficulty. The head trauma extended to his face and jaw which could cause further complications as well, but the jaw was not dislocated which is a good sign. There is little chance that the seizing could recur, and the question of the fine motor functions in his face remains.” The intern presenting on rounds presented to her resident. She continued, adjusting her files in her arms.

“There is also a note in his chart that both Dr. Scully and others have expressed your concern that he hasn’t spoken, but it very well could’ve been shock or initial trauma that kept him from articulating. We’ve observed some light brain swelling but, any form of brain injury is a serious issue that needs to be observed over time,” she finished proudly.

The resident continued to quiz her on Mulder’s chart. “And the most common effects from a severe concussion?”

“The patient could wake up with headaches, nausea, blurred vision, dizziness, light sensitivity, or mood swings.”

“And what is your recommendation at this time?”

“Because of his concussion and symptoms, he should be kept here in the neurological ICU for observation and treatment. We’ll know more when he wakes up, which could be at any time now.”

The resident nodded and turned to Scully who was more focused on Mulder’s face than anyone else. She knew all of this anyway, she’d read the chart ten times since she’d been in the room. It was most of what she’d done aside from a three-hour nap, bathroom breaks, and similar staring as she was doing now.

“Dr. Scully, do you have any questions?”

“No.” Scully looked up to the doctor. “Wait, will he be taken for any scans today?”

“Ye-es,” drawled the doctor, looking at the interns. “We said—yes he will be taken up in a few hours for a secondary CT scan to make sure nothing has changed.”

Scully nodded and dismissed them with glance, not at all embarrassed to have missed their planning before, more intent on watching Mulder, waiting for him to come back to her.

\- - -

The afternoon was a blur of talking to different people and making sure everything was arranged correctly for them and for the case. Scully organized the world from his bedside.

There were updates from the local precinct. A rookie cop came by with their personal belongings and files in a standard office box and told her what was going on. The perp was processed successfully, the precinct would handle all of the paperwork, and she just needed to send her report and the final medical paperwork whenever she had it. Easy.

Skinner called once before he went home for the day. He must’ve been worried. Scully felt a slight warming in her chest when they spoke, feeling not for the first time grateful to have Skinner as their friend.

Around lunch time, when a sympathetic orderly brought her a tray of food she picked at, she called her mother and gave her the bare minimum of details. She’d been worried, of course, but understood that Mulder was going to be okay. At least that’s what Scully told her. Scully promised to call with updates when she had them, and her mother assured her that she’d water her plants until she came back, and did she need anything sent to her?

She toyed with calling the Gunmen but decides to wait. The more she knows to tell them the better. And, honestly, they might call her first if they’re set up to be alerted when Mulder’s name enters any new system. She wouldn’t be surprised. 

The thoughts left her. Mulder was in front of her. Still. Silent. Blossoming with bruises, visibly trying to heal from within.

\- - -

For the last hour, Mulder had been twitching. A finger, his nose. He was walking up, coming out of whatever trauma and pain meds induced sleep he’d been in for over twelve hours. And Scully was still waiting.

They’d taken him up just two hours ago for another scan, and everything looked as expected. No sudden bleeding, the minimal swelling was already going down. All good news. But he was still asleep.

Then, finally, after the tension she’d built up all day long, Mulder cracked open his eyes and winced at the brightness. Her movements already planned, she swiftly stood, ignoring the aches in her body, and shut off the light directly over him and then leaned over, extending herself so he could see her without straining.

“Mulder? Mulder, it’s me. You’re in the hospital. Can you hear me?”

Mulder blinked, trying to focus on Scully and not the throbbing down his left side, his whole body. He nodded, slightly, feeling the rasp in his throat and not quite managing to respond verbally.

Scully smiled, but it didn’t reach her eyes. It was more for his benefit. She shifted, hitting the call button for the nurses, and he noticed she had been trailing her hands over him while she hovered.

“Mulder, hey, look at me? Can you speak?”

Mulder furrowed his brows, confused at the question and still only half-aware of his surroundings with drugs. _Could I talk?_ He thought. _Why not?_

He opened his jaw, wincing through the pain on the left side of his head. The movement shifted or disturbed something and suddenly his ear exploded in noise, ringing so loud it was overpowering. His eyes snapped shut, a searing headache crossing his skull like lightning. It receded as fast as it came, and left a throbbing headache behind. He clasped Scully’s hand tightly, trying to anchor himself from the pain.

“It’s okay, it’s okay, it’s okay, you’re okay,” Scully chanted, hoping he could hear her and understand. She took one hand and pushed the morphine button several times, knowing it would only be a little while until it hit his system and he could relax again. “You’re going to be okay, Mulder, I’m right here, I promise. I’m not leaving.”

He could barely hear her at first but it soon got clearer, the ringing receding to a more manageable level, but still there. His fingers and toes began to tingle, a familiar side effect of morphine that he welcomed wholeheartedly. He almost moved his free hand to his face, trying to hold away the pain, but his left arm throbbed where it lay on the pillow and he decided it was best to just not move, at all.

Mulder managed a low hum, or maybe a moan, unwilling to move his jaw again lest the sound get worse. He opened his eyes again, the world a bit clearer, to see Scully with tears on her cheeks. God, he hated when she cried, but he was infinitely grateful it was he in the hospital bed and not her. That perp would’ve killed her.

“Okay, better?” At Mulder’s slight nod, barely moving at all, she relaxed her hold on his hand slightly, willing the tears to stop but not having the energy to truly care. “Okay, good. You don’t have to move your jaw – is that’s what’s hurting?”

Another nod.

“And your ear? Did it start ringing?”

Mulder was continually impressed at Scully’s medical intuition. He made his eyes wide to emphasize the extent of the ringing and nodded slightly once more .

“Ok, that’s normal. I’ll make sure it gets checked again, but it should heal. You—your head hit the wall very hard. Do you remember what happened?” Scully swallowed, making him wonder what she was holding back. “Are you dizzy?”

He half shrugged, not wanting to move much. He remembered enough of what happened. Mulder could barely tell where he was, but at least he wasn’t that dizzy. At least he didn’t feel dizzy while laying down and not moving... The all over ache was receding, the morphine relaxing his body, and he felt like he could move a little more. He gave an experimental wiggle to his jaw and found that the ringing in his ear didn’t get any worse even as the ache ramped up.

Before Scully could ask another question, he opened his mouth, going slower this time, and forced his neglected vocal cords to emit noise.

“Hhh,” he tried, licking his lips. His tongue felt too big, his mouth sore and tender now with the cool hospital air hitting it. “Hhhk—”

Wait. Something wasn’t right here, he thought. He was trying to say _Hi, Scully_. He was trying to ask if she was okay, what was wrong, what he hurt this time, if they caught the perp. But he could make his tongue form the right way.

He looked at Scully, confused again and a little concerned, and she mirrored his emotions exactly. What was happening?

Before she could speak, two nurses came in and dominated the space. Scully updated them as best she could.

“He’s been awake for maybe five minutes. He seems to be experiencing severe jaw and ear pain on his left side, and he confirmed that there was ringing. I upped his morphine as much as the pump allowed. He—he tried to talk but he didn’t, it’s like he couldn’t—” Scully cut herself off, letting the nurses check him.

One shined a light in his ear; another checked his reflexes, something Scully forgot about when he woke up.

One of them turned to Scully. “I’ll call in Dr. Rosen, but everything looks like how we were expecting,” she then addressed Mulder by leaning over him. “Is there anything I can help you with right now, Mr. Mulder?”

Scully watched as he shook his head slightly, then noticed a little too late that he was reaching out his hand again for her. She rushed to him, taking a too-big step and almost overbalancing to hold his hand in reassurance. She couldn’t imagine what he was feeling at the moment. It all must be overwhelming. The nurses finished making notes in the chart and left quickly with word that the doctor would be in soon.

Mulder just looked at Scully, not being willing to move much more because everything still just hurt, and the ringing was still there, and his arm throbbed, and his jaw ached. But Scully was there, with that horrible look on her face, and he was only a little awake, and his body was drifting and he just wanted to go back to sleep.


	6. Chapter 6

“We shot the perp just after you went down. He was rushing us, Pulaski got him in the knee and I got him in the shoulder, both flesh wounds. He was here and released this morning, and now he’s in custody. They’re charging him with all the murders, and assaulting a federal agent,” Scully recapped.  She wanted to emphasize how much she wanted to put a bullet straight between his eyes after what he did to Mulder, but thought it was unnecessary.

With any luck, he would suffer in prison.

It was night, almost 24 hours since he’d been admitted, and Scully wasn’t leaving Mulder’s side. “You don’t remember the ambulance at all?”  
Mulder shook his head just enough for Scully to see. He still wasn’t able to talk, and after trying once earlier he was almost afraid to keep trying. He’d been referred to a specialist who was coming in the morning. This was the first time he was both conscious and coherent enough for Scully to give him all the details of what happened to him.

“You woke up in the ambulance, and it was bad, Mulder.” Scully’s voice got softer, and her eyes further away, wondering exactly how much she should tell him. She held his hand with one of hers, rubbing his hand and arm with the other as she leaned forward in her seat.

“You woke up, and you tried to talk but you couldn’t, and we thought it was from the neck brace but we know it’s from the trauma now. Oh, there was blood, from your mouth. You have a cut that you might already know about, but it was… not good. They had to put in stitches.”

Mulder delicately tongued the inside of his left cheek, feeling a mild sting rise up among the general pain in that area. That would explain the taste too. Ouch. He squeezed Scully’s hand in reassurance, partly for comfort and partly to tell her to keep going. He hated not knowing, and knew that the more Scully told him the less it would haunt her in the future.

“We got you to the ER and they wheeled you away. I could look through the window and saw everything, saw you, and you started seizing.”  
Mulder’s eyes widened. It made sense with the full body ache, from what he remembered before, and combined with all of that trauma. No wonder he didn’t want to move.

“Grand mal. It was a lot, probably made all of your injuries worse, but it’s probably nothing, Mulder. Just a one-time thing.” She reassured him with her strong gaze. A façade.

It obviously wasn’t nothing to her. He wishes she’d let go, as much as it hurt him to see her in pain, to see her cry, she probably needed it. He’d gathered she’d been awake pretty much since the night before, could read it in the circles under her eyes, the way her hands shook slightly when not grasped tightly in his. Mulder wanted to tell her to get some sleep, to go to the cot in the corner of the room, to go back to the hotel, something, but his voice wasn’t cooperating.

He felt trapped, hurt, and isolated in his head.

He tried not to think about it.

“And you know the rest, I think. Do you have any questions?” Scully asked patiently, gently, hoping against hope he would just open his mouth and say something insane or funny or just anything at all. 

Mulder responded by nodding once, wanting the strength to be able to pull Scully into his arms and fall asleep. He lifted his left arm, able to with the meds and as the strain of the seizure had worn off, and tapped the side of his head lightly, wanting her to talk about his brain injury more.

“Your brain? Broca’s area?” At his nod, she continued. “It’s a part of the brain that controls language production and processing. Yours was likely damaged temporarily, and will heal in time, which is why you can’t seem to speak right now. But you are processing and understanding everything I say, correct?” She knew the answer, and he nods, but she was double checking because that’s what she does.

“Your concussion likely caused the seizure, and some of your other symptoms. The brain is complicated, and we still don’t know everything there is to know about it, but you likely just bruised this part. You likely have what they call expressive aphasia, the inability to say what you want to say, and it might be more complex than that. And your concussion, well. It’s not really helping right now, and is contributing to your other symptoms: pain, weakness, dizziness, light sensitivity. You’ve been through it all before. But it will heal, along with your jaw, and you’ll be able to speak again.”

Scully’s additional ‘I think’ hung in the room unsaid, but felt nonetheless.

Mulder shrugged a little, tugging on her hand, trying to convey a question with his body.

“I don’t know when, no.” She looked down, trying to hide her distress. He could see how exhausted she was, the bags under her eyes, the shifting in the uncomfortable seat.

Mulder wasn’t satisfied with her answers and tugged her hand harder, trying to get more information out of her, knowing she was holding back. He wanted to talk to her, dammit, to reassure her and himself. But he knew that his distress was only causing her pain. He just wanted to be better. Maybe something she could say would be the magical words, to heal his brain with her words, a magic balm of rightness.

Scully let out a sigh, trying to remember her studies from medical school. “There could be complications, after everything is healed. Broca’s area, it’s responsible for so much. You could have a stutter, difficulty with semantics and sentence structure, problems writing – Oh! We haven’t tried writing; do you want to?”

Mulder nodded, angry at himself for not thinking of it sooner.

Scully left his side for a moment, grabbing her notebook and pen from her jacket that was slung over the chair in the corner. She handed Mulder the pen and he grasped it, his fine motor skills intact as they had been all day. She positioned the notebook on his stomach as he angled his arm to write.

_You okay?_

Scully smiled, reading as he wrote. “Yes, I’m okay. Are you okay?” She flipped the notebook, giving him a new page to write on.

_Im perfect. Couldnt be happier. You need sleep!_

It was his usual, barely-intelligible scrawl and Scully had never been happier to see it. “You need sleep too, Mulder. Are you hurting anywhere specific, anything worse than earlier?”

He answered with a shake of his head, and motioned for a new page to be available. Scully provided it and watched as he wrote:

_Kiss me._

Scully’s face broke into a big smile, straining the tense muscles in her face. She’d barely thought of kissing him – aside from wanting to every second of her life for the past several years. Putting it into practice was still new and wonderful, even after weeks of being together in this new way. She left the pen and notepad, turned to a new page, next to his hip where he could reach it and followed the tugging of his hand down to his mouth.

She gently framed his face between her hands, looking at his eyes with smile wrinkles around them, the bruises blossoming across his orbital and cheek bones, his poor mouth with all sorts of hurt contained, his beautiful brain hidden not too deep below, hurting.

Scully kissed him gently, taking special care, paying attention to both his lips, his cheek, the side of his nose. It was a reunion of sorts. Dust settled, trauma in the past, all caught up.

Mulder smiled as she pulled away, wanting to keep going but knowing he needed to rest and heal so Scully didn’t get a mouthful of blood the next time they kissed.

-

Scully was out of his room, at more of his urging via the notebook and pen, to get some dinner for herself, and see if the gift shop had a change of clothes for her. She wouldn’t go back to the hotel, even for an hour, and he hated that she felt obligated to stay, even though he would be doing the same thing if their position were reversed. And he thanked the heavens that it wasn’t.

Mulder was just alert enough to be restless. He flipped through TV channels to amuse himself, not being able to move much more than that. He actively hated having a catheter. He worked on moving his left arm more and more, trying to work out the ache but never succeeding. He wished for a case file, a report to write, an alien appearing and playing nurse, anything to stave off the boredom.

_When in Rome_ , he thought after a while and clicked the self-serve morphine button. Might as well float through the boredom if he could. Within minutes he was on high, in limbo between consciousness and sleep, riding the wave of tingle-inducing medication.   
He thought of Scully, like he always thought of Scully, and then he slipped into a vivid dream.

Her hair was so, so soft and beautiful. It was longer, spread out against his pillows. Red hair in technicolor. The ultimate dream, Scully in his bed, only recently realized. Years in the making, in the hoping, only weeks into the actual, beautiful, wonderful experience of it all.   
He was so lucky, he thought. What strange path had led him to her? What miracles did he perform in his past lives to be worthy of Dana Scully?

Her hair, her beautiful hair, he couldn’t stop thinking about it. On his pillows, tucked behind her ear, the rare sighting of a tiny ponytail that only half of her hair is long enough to get into. His fingers, running through it, grasping it. The movement of it above him, under him, when they make love.

Red. Orange. Holographic in the right light. The color making her eyes pop, making her stand out in a crowd. How it was kind of wavy on the weekends, when she let it dry naturally.

Blissfully, he lived in his dream world of _Scully Scully Scully_ , seeing her everywhere in his mind’s eye. Naked, beautiful. In the bath, at work, the first day she stepped into his life. Gorgeous. Surrounded by a glittering aura. Chasing down a suspect, taking men twice her size down in smooth movements.

Falling.

Wait. No, she was falling, hit with a bullet, with a fist. An invisible enemy. Evil. Her face bleeding, her body broken, tortured in front of him. Falling, endlessly falling. Helpless. He can’t reach her. She’s falling away and it’s his fault. His chest tore apart in anguish, _Scully, Scully no please no don’t hurt her stop it. I’m so sorry, Scully. It’s my fault, it’s my fault._

-

Scully felt moderately more human on her way back to Mulder’s room. She’d eaten, and the cafeteria food wasn’t as bad as she was expecting. Keeping with the Seattle theme, the coffee was excellent too. She’d gotten a refill before leaving.

She’d also found a simple grey shirt only a little too big for her in the gift shop and she bought it, waiting to change until she could take a quick shower in Mulder’s room. Part of her was desperate for a full change of clothes and a bed to sleep in, but she couldn’t bring herself to leave Mulder’s side, not until he was leaving with her.

Scully nodded at the nurses before entering his room. The sun was setting outside the window, and it threw comforting shadows across the room. Mulder was asleep with the TV on and Scully stifled a chuckle, it was exactly how he slept on his couch. Well, how he used to sleep there. Now, more often than not, they would be at one of their places, in one of their beds, together. He still watched TV late at night sometimes, when his brain couldn’t wind down any other way, but he always came back to bed.

Scully quietly went to the hospital-fitted bathroom, complete with many handlebars for stability and an open shower, and locked the door to undress. She noticed a smear of blood on the sleeve of her flannel and rinsed it in the sink. Her shirt was in worse condition, and she put it in an empty bag to deal with later. The rest of her clothes would have to do, at least for another night and day. Her panties went in the bag as well. She couldn’t bear the thought of putting them on again.

She showered efficiently, reluctantly washing her hair with the hospital soap as well, knowing it would dry puffy and odd. Desperate times, and all that. She quickly dried with the scratchy towel, the restroom too cold and bright for any semblance of comfort, and redressed, taking her bag and drying flannel shirt into Mulder’s room.

She settled in once more, grateful for the extra blanket over her now bigger chair that the nurses had provided her with. She pulled it around her, her new shirt too thin for warmth, and settled in, mindlessly watching a Jeopardy rerun on the TV, slipping quickly into sleep beside Mulder despite the inviting coffee at her side.


	7. Chapter 7

It was the early morning hours when Mulder woke up next, dreams forgotten aside from a casual sense of foreboding, something he lived with in his every day. More so now, he supposed before opening his eyes, due to the reality of having potentially complex brain trauma.

Mulder found the controls to his bed easily and rose the head until he was sitting more comfortably. Well, as comfortable as someone could be with a catheter and various other tubes and wires attached to them, barely 30 hours after getting the shit beaten out of them. He also found the controls to the morphine pump and used it liberally, not noticing that the night nurse had further restricted his limit for the day.

Sometime during the night while he’d been asleep, Scully had appeared and taken over the bigger chair in the corner of the room to sleep. She needed it. He spent some time watching her, his vision almost back to normal.

Mulder’s taken out of his trance by a noise to his right and gently moves his head to see a new doctor enter. The woman walking in brings a breeze of air with her, the faint smell of flowers and herbal tea. The scents must be trapped in her hair, long down past her shoulders and red—a deeper red than Scully’s, even. Mulder’s drugged brain is fixated on her hair, thinking over in a loop about how red it is. The new woman had an aura around her, making her stand out from the monotone hospital room. Was her hair floating a little?

Morphine is a wonderful drug.

“Hello, Mr. Mulder. I’m Dr. Vicky Pernow. You can call me, or think of me, as Vicky. I’m the speech pathologist assigned to your case.” The doctor spoke quietly in a mild British accent, glancing at the sleeping Scully in the corner.

Mulder finally looks at the new doctor’s face, registering the other person in the room.

“I do realize I am here early. Who is this?”

She gestured toward Scully, obviously trying to get Mulder to speak. He gave her what he hoped was a withering look, but it was met with an encouraging smile.

Mulder found the notepad and pen and wrote instead of trying to speak, already knowing he couldn’t.

_Thats Scully. Dr. Partner. Girlfriend._

Vicky adjusted her stylish reading glasses and picked up the notepad. His handwriting was messy and slanted, but consistent, which was a good sign. She remained quiet while speaking to him.

“I see that your writing ability remains intact—that’s brilliant! Now, let’s see what you can do with your voice. Have you tried to say your partner’s name?” At his nod, she continued as quietly as before. “Well, go on then.”

Mulder rolled his eyes but complied, moving his tongue awkwardly in his still-swollen mouth, trying not to overthink it.

“Ths—” he tried. “Tsh—” he rasped, and then gave up and pursed his lips, letting out a distressed sound, rolling his head back to where he could see Scully, getting more frustrated by the second. His body tensed, then surged with pain, and he tried to relax.

“I see you’re having some trouble articulating, at least with the S sound of Scully’s name. Have you tried other words, maybe something a little easier to say? How about an H sound, one syllable? Try waking her up, say ‘hey’.”

Mulder looked at this new doctor again, wanting nothing more than for her to leave or to come up with an automatic cure to whatever the hell was wrong with him. The more attainable goal was to wake up Scully. At least she could speak to the doctor.

“Huhh. Hey,” he manages, barely audible. He tried again, louder. “Hey!” It’s all he can make his mouth say, his tongue swollen and hot, his skull hurting with the new vibrations under the dulling blanket of morphine. The syllable didn’t require him to articulate. But, technically, it was a word.

A word that made Scully wake with a start, nearly crashing to the floor.

Mulder cringed a little, but did feel some satisfaction at the paltry success.

Scully gathered herself and looked at Mulder and the new person in the room. She turned back to Mulder in confusion while smoothing her hair. “Wait, was that you? I thought I heard you say something.”

“He did,” replied the doctor, still clasping a clipboard to her chest. “Hi, I’m Dr. Pernow, you can call me Vicky. I’ll be Mr. Mulder’s speech therapist.”

“It’s Mulder,” Scully started to say, standing and stretching the sleep from her body. “He prefers to be called Mulder. And I’m Dana Scully, his partner.” Scully took a step and shook Vicky’s hand across Mulder’s bed. “And his doctor,” she added.

“And his girlfriend, I see,” she finished, pointing to the pad of paper on Mulder’s chest.

Scully peered at it with interest. Girlfriend? Huh. She looked to Mulder who was fastidiously concentrated on the new doctor to his right. Interesting.

Vicky adjusted her glasses and looked through the chart in her hands, turning to address primarily Mulder. “Excellent. Well, we will be working closely with each other as you heal. Mulder, I’ve reviewed your chart and scans, and I believe that you’re suffering from a mixture of expressive aphasia and physical trauma to the jaw, neck, and skull. Basically, your brain isn’t always sending the right signals to your vocal cords at the moment, and when they do get there, your throat, tongue, and jaw are too damaged to do much at the moment. With me so far?”

Mulder nodded, liking this new doctor’s straightforward attitude. It reminded him a little of Scully.

“Good. Now, I’ve drawn up a bit of a plan for treatment and rehabilitation, but honestly, we could chuck it out the window tomorrow. Brain injuries around Broca’s area are completely unpredictable and not entirely understood. It could be that we’re dealing with 80% brain damage and 20% physical damage below, or it could very well be the opposite. At this point, and I know how much patients love hearing this, we need to wait, and you need to heal a little more.”

Scully nodded in sync with Mulder.

“Alright. If either of you have any questions about this, let me know. Right now, I’d like to perform a cursory exam, if you don’t mind.”

Vicky set down her chart and pen on the table, making a few notes before she started her exam. While she was writing, Scully looked down at Mulder and found him staring back at her.

“Did you really say something earlier or was I dreaming?” she asked softly.

Mulder smirked a little and tugged on her hand playfully, pushing down his frustration to show off his new trick and make Scully smile. “Hey,” he said.

Scully’s smile cracked wildly across her face, lighting up her tired eyes. She more than elated to hear him speak at all, her absolute worst fears behind her. “Hey yourself.” She lifted his left hand and gently kissed it, aware that this was his bad arm at the moment.

“Okay. Now, let’s have a look at you.” 

Vicky moved around his bed and looked into both of his ears, felt around his jaw and skull. There were a few more painful seconds of her manipulating his jaw to test its movement range, and then some awkward moments of silence when she looked into his mouth, had him move his tongue around, and took notes.

Scully stayed close by his good side, holding his hand, having switched places with Vicky as she started.

Vicky settled, finishing her notes and turned to “Are you having any problems hearing me with your left ear?”

Mulder skips the speaking and raises his left hand, fingers held about an inch apart.

“Is it a ringing in your ear?”

A slight nod.

“Just the left ear?”

Another nod.

“That is to be expected. After the blow you had, tinnitus and at least some slight dizziness-?”

Mulder nods again, and the doctor continues, “are to be expected. Your concussion was an impressive Grade 3, and you’re hitting all the good marks of recovery from that.”

“What’s the plan, then?” Scully asked. This problem of Mulder’s was so far outside her range of expertise she didn’t know what to do. She was itching to research, but the resources were quite lacking in this hospital room.

Vicky looked over her reading glasses at her kindly. “Simply put, I don’t know. It’s truly too early to tell, although I’ve at least ruled out some of the more serious and permanent complications today. I’ll be back in tomorrow to check again, but I believe we will know more in a few days.”

Mulder’s eyes widened and Scully could feel his question—he’d be here for days?

Scully interjected on his behalf, soothing his hand with both of hers. “Will this be largely outpatient treatment?”

Vicky nodded. “Likely yes. With the rest of your injuries, I have a feeling they’ll release you tomorrow afternoon at the latest. Do you live in the area?”

“No, actually, we’re from D.C. We were here, um, temporarily.”

“Well I can refer you to colleagues in D.C., but for the meantime I doubt Mulder here will be able to fly, with his head injury as severe as it was. You’ll have to speak with your primary doctor here for more details, of course.” Vicky’s pager beeped and she looked at the message. “That’s my cue. I’ve left a business card on the table there in case you need to reach me, but if not, I’ll see you tomorrow.” With a wink and a turn that made her hair spin out behind her, Vicky left the room.

Scully watched as she confidently turned right, and then a moment later walked left, as if she’d been going the wrong way.

“Well, she was nice,” Scully said into the silence.

Mulder nodded, and tugged her closer, repeating his moves from the day before when they kissed.

Scully complied, pausing just before reaching his lips and searching his eyes. “Girlfriend?” she questioned.

Mulder’s eyes went a bit wide and he smiled sheepishly, unevenly to favor his left cheek. He opened his lips, seeing if the same one-syllable easy word trick would work again. “Yeah.” It came out sounding more like ‘e-ah’ but it was still something.

Scully smiled against his lips as they kissed, going on a little longer than the day before, but just as gentle. “Good.”

-

Mulder’s neurological doctor came in that afternoon and looked him over again, and repeated pretty much what Vicky said. Mulder called her a magical witch, and rambled about the smell of herbal tea in the room on his notepad. Scully rolled her eyes and humored him, amused at her partner on good painkillers. Mulder would be released the next day, and wasn’t allowed to fly for at least a week and possibly two. The concussion was bad enough that it just wasn’t a good idea right away.

Mulder’s team of nurses and orderlies had come in and briefed them on their plan for the day, to get Mulder up and walking himself. Mulder had discomfort and delight in his features as soon as his catheter was removed, and groaned through the process of standing, but was a trooper to the bathroom and back, hardly leaning on the large male nurse at all.

They all agreed with the plan to discharge him to outpatient status in the morning as long as his movement was this good, and the both of them couldn’t be more relieved to be leaving the hospital soon.

So, Scully was on a mission. She had just been at the motel, their shabby home for the past week and took a very long, much needed, hot shower.

After freshening up, she packed up his room, her room, checked them out, and took a cab to the hotel she found that was much nicer and closer to the hospital. No way was she going to spend two weeks in that motel. It wasn’t the best environment for anyone to recover from serious injuries, and she wanted to sleep next to him now that they were off the clock.

Scully had reserved a one-bedroom suite. When she got into the room, she wished she had waited for this much nicer shower, but hauled their bags into the bedroom to unpack. She sighed, needing to put half of their clothes in the hall for a wash by the hotel.

They were left with very few things. The clothes she’d been wearing at the hospital were less than fresh, and she had tried to grab what was left of Mulder’s clothing that he’d been taken in with, but every item was cut through when he’d been admitted, and she’d tossed them in the hospital. Including his socks that, while intact, had several holes and no elasticity.

Just as she was done putting their clothes in the drawers or laundry bag, Scully stumbled backward and sat hard on the bed. There was something about handling Mulder’s things that made her pause. How far they had come, from work to friends to here, to Scully taking care of Mulder’s underwear and carefully packing his shaving kit and placing it on the sink opposite her things.

Interesting, how things change, she thought. No, not interesting, just… good. Good, how things change and so often change for the worse, but how some things, important things, can change for the good.

Mulder may be hurt, but he will heal and she will be by his side. Scully shuddered to think how all of this would have been different had they not been together. No doubt that he would’ve pushed her away, and she, God, she didn’t know what she would have done. Left? Stayed stubbornly by his side to help him?

Scully shook her head, too tired to think straight. She had agreed to get some sleep in a real bed, at his insistence, and though she was anxious to get back to him she needed the rest. She placed the bag of dirty clothes in the hall, made a call to the front desk, and curled up in the plush bed for a quick afternoon nap.


	8. Chapter 8

As glad as he was that Scully left to get some rest, Mulder was feeling twitchy again, restless, confined. This not being able to speak thing was seriously messing with his head—it felt like he was chained inside his body, like he was trapped.

He had the pad, he had the pen. That was good. He could move, albeit painfully, to the bathroom and back with minimal supervision. But he could barely make words come out of his damn mouth. Even babies could do that. He couldn’t talk, he couldn’t run. The only part of him that had free reign was his mind, and the thoughts were getting faster and faster without Scully there to help keep them back.

Sleep eluded him, and the meds were reduced to a quantity barely equivalent to over-the-counter meds. He hurt just enough to continually be uncomfortable with his position in the bed, shifting this way and that, a chronic ache. His jaw, his face, his skull all throbbed a dry pain that made him light sensitive and overly-conscious of every movement.

Mulder tried flipping through the channels on the TV, but the daytime talk shows and soap operas did nothing to distract him.

_What if Scully wasn’t coming back?_

No, he quashed that one immediately. She would be back. Scully always, always came back for him, no matter what. She was just at the hotel, getting some rest, cleaning up. She’d be back. Soon. He could always call her—

No. He couldn’t. He _couldn’t_ fucking call her and say more than “Hey” or “Yeah” or other one-syllable words. He’d been trying all day, especially since Scully left. The S in her name, or in anything, was an absolute nonstarter. He’d been trying to mumble his own name for an hour but was stuck on “Muh,” and not much else. Not being able to say your own name was a fresh hell of mental health ramifications that Mulder knew not to dissect too much at the moment.

Mental health. Mental health ward. Fuck, God, they could lock him up so easily. He wouldn’t be able to yell, to tell that they had it wrong. He could only grunt and hum and hiss, Jesus Christ. Abruptly, Mulder stopped trying to sound out his own name. He couldn’t be heard mumbling to himself, not in a hospital, not without Scully there to help, oh God, where was Scully? Where did she go? She was gone and he was alone and They were going to come in and lock him up in the crazy bin and he’d never get out, he’d never, he’d never—

There was a hand on his shoulder, pushing him back. 

_No!_ “Oh!” came out instead. When did he get hunched over like this? Where was Scully? God, the room was closing in on him.

“Sir! Sir, you have to calm down. Take a deep breath, you’re in the hospital!” someone yelled, they yelled, he’s in a hospital and They put him here and They were going to lock him up forever and ever—

“Oh! Hey! Nnn!” he tried to object, thrashing out at the nurses, now there were three, all trying to restrain him. Restrain him. Tie him down.

He couldn’t take it, he just opened his mouth and screamed, the loudest he’d ever screamed. God it hurt, it ripped through him like a knife. He screamed and kicked and thrashed and struggled, for hours, for minutes, he was trapped, trapped. And then he felt a pinch in his arm and then everything went black.

-

Scully was back at the hospital less than ten minutes after they called her, thankful that the hotel was just a few blocks away. She put on her shoes. She ran. A Mulder in distress was a Mulder she needed to be next to, as soon as humanly possible.

When she got back to his room she was panting, but he was still knocked out from the drugs they had given him. His hair was a mess, bags prominent under his eyes she couldn’t remember seeing just hours before.

A panic attack? A bad one? _God, Mulder_ , she thought.

Mulder’s head nurse came in to update her. 

“The duty nurses noticed spikes in his vitals and we rushed in. It seemed like he was having some sort of attack. He was hunched over, and then resisted when we tried to get him to lay back. We had to sedate him and restrain him, for his safety and ours. Is he, uh, predisposed to…?”

Scully hummed, her hand running over his unconscious one, hoping a part of him noticed that she was there with him. She thought of Mulder, trapped and restrained in a mental hospital, and shuddered. “Under extreme duress, alone, and in hospital like settings—it can be a trigger for him. I wasn’t thinking when I left him.” She sighed, kicking herself mentally. “He’s been through a lot the last few days, and this morning.”

“Well,” the nurse replied, making a further note in the chart. “We will just keep a closer eye on him then, in case it repeats.”

“It shouldn’t, I’m not leaving him again.”

The nurse looked at Scully with an unimpressed expression and left the room, leaving them alone once more. She began to speak to her unconscious partner, hoping he could feel that he wasn’t alone.

“Hey, Mulder. It’s me. I’m okay, you’re okay too.” Scully suddenly realized that Mulder was still restrained to the bed with cotton Velcro. She rushed to take them off, tuck them under the mattress. No use in comforting him if he was immediately going to be panicked by restraints when he woke up, and no telling if he could feel them while he was under sedation as well.

“I’m just taking these off. It’s not your fault, you know. I hope that you know that. They aren’t going to keep you here against your will. I wouldn’t let them.” She kept up the string of nonsense affection at him, telling him about her day, about the new hotel room with the beautiful view of the city. Scully spoke of clean clothes, a nice bed, room service.

She was thankful for the shower she took earlier, and the new clothes she wore. It made her feel stronger, a little readier to face the next night of sleeping next to him in this hospital room.

“Soon enough, Mulder, you’ll wake up and we’ll share a crappy hospital-food meal.” Scully settled into her chair, placed close to his side so she could still touch his arm. “Then we’ll watch Jeopardy, and plan for your recovery. Because that’s exactly what going to happen—you will get better, and I will do everything I can to help.”

She settled in, the adrenaline of the afternoon fading into her limitless patience whenever Mulder was in distress. She wouldn’t move until he woke up, and even then she wouldn’t leave this room until he was discharged. No one should feel alone in a hospital room, especially not her Mulder.

-

Morning arrived and brought with it a classic Seattle rain. Unlike the rain of D.C., which was humid and uncomfortable, Seattle rain felt crisp and clean. A gentle breeze disrupted raindrops on their decent, ensuring every corner of things and people were soaked throughout the day.

While the rain was refreshing the city, Mulder’s mind seemed immune. He’d woken up in a mood, a bad mood, and only wanted to leave. Get out. Be better. Go home, do his job, be a functioning human again. Instead, he woke up hours before he could be discharged, still hurting and unable to speak.

Scully’s temperament was better, especially that they could leave this hospital room and have some real rest and privacy in the hotel. She was very over sleeping in chairs, even though she would do it for another week if Mulder had to stay. She tried to calm him down, cheer him up, but nothing was doing the trick. She had to leave for a few minutes just to get away from his frustration, and came back in his room with coffee. Good coffee, from a coffee cart outside.

“Here, Mulder. This will cheer you up.”

The coffee was iced, so he could sip it through a straw and not burn himself. He took it reluctantly with his good hand, his left still a mess of bruises and aches that he rarely tried to grip anything with. Only time would heal it.

He hummed in thanks, or at least that’s what Scully thought the hum meant.

“I know you’re frustrated, Mulder. I am too.”

He shot a glare at her. 

“You want to leave, I get it. They just need to check you out on a few more things and we can go to the hotel.”

“Ugh.” He replied.

Mulder seemed to be capable of the deeper, guttural sounds low in his throat, words that required little tongue or lip coordination. His current vocabulary consisted of one-syllable words. Ugh, hey, oh, yeah, and uh were his main highlights, along with the occasional hum indicating yes and no. He’d outright refused to try other words, hating that he couldn’t get them right.

Scully was heartbroken for him, but she had to be strong and keep pushing for him to try no matter what his mood was like.

“I also know that you are in a bad mood.”

He looked at her as if to say ‘ya think?’

“And I know that it is partially justified—”

“Par-?” he managed in anger.

“Yes, partially. A lot of your mood swings, yes _mood swings_ , are symptomatic of your grade three concussion. Your brain’s wires are still crossed, in more ways than one.” Scully sighed and sipped at her coffee, hoping he understood what she was trying to say. “I just. I don’t want you to get sucked down too far, is all.”

Mulder pursed his lips, not wanting to hear more about how he was broken. Instead he looked at the window, away from Scully, and drank his coffee. He knew, he _knew_ , that this was all a little out of his control. But something in him was stopping the part of him that wanted to fix it, to apologize, even on paper. The inability just frustrated him more, further darkening his outlook.

-

Three hours later and they were just waiting for Vicky to come by with home instructions for the next few days. Scully had his things packed, and had already helped Mulder change into comfortable clothing, sweatpants and a long-sleeved shirt. He was sitting in a huff on the bed after spending five pages of a notebook trying to convince Scully to sign him out so they could leave.

Finally, the doctor in question breezed in. 

“Hello there, agents!” she greeted brightly.

Mulder barely looked at her while Scully made a distressed face at him, out of her depth. 

“Hi, Dr. Pernow.”

“Vicky, please.” The doctor adjusted her glasses and turned to face Scully. “Why don’t we pop in the hall for a quick chat.”

Scully followed her out after throwing a glance at her sullen Mulder, making sure he didn’t object to her leaving. He didn’t even seem like he cared.

Once in the hall away from the door, Vicky and Scully sat down in chairs just across from the nurse’s station. “I take it he’s not in the best mood this morning.”

Scully deflated slightly, suddenly thankful to have Vicky there to speak with. She felt calm in her presence, like she had all the answers and was probably hiding a cup of tea close by. Like everything was going to be okay. “No, he’s not. I know, intellectually, that it’s just symptoms of the concussion mixed with real frustration, but it’s like he’s completely shut me off.”

“It’s not uncommon, especially with men.” Vicky readjusted herself, pulling at her green dress so it lay where she wanted, aligning her stethoscope with the several long beaded necklaces she wore. “He’s feeling angry that he can’t articulate himself. Frustration might even be an understatement of what he’s going through. Trapped, emasculated, depressed, I’ve witnessed it all in patients like him while they are working through this problem.”

Scully looked at her helplessly. “I don’t know what to do. I—I’ve tried everything this morning, and nothing works.”

Vicky reached out and patted Scully on the arm reassuringly. “The best thing for you to do is be there for him. That’s it. Don’t feel like you have to suppress your own emotions regarding his care, he’s going to be doing that enough for the both of you.”

Scully smiled slightly at the attempt, but her eyes were sad. “This has never happened before,” Scully admitted. At Vicky’s look, she elaborated. “This sort of long-term injury, I mean. We have dangerous jobs, and we’ve been in more than a few hospital rooms – but nothing like this.”

Vicky squeezed her arm again, feeling nothing but sympathy for the younger redhead.  “This will be hard. As we’ve seen, his condition won’t just improve overnight. He’s going to have to retrain his brain and communication skills, and the only way to do that is practice. Now, I’m going to go in alone, if you don’t mind, and guide him through some exercises. I’ll leave the packet of them with him as well, so you can look through them later and help him. But, he will likely feel uncomfortable trying and failing in front of you. Don’t let that stop him. If he needs space, give it to him.”

Scully nodded her thanks and understanding as Vicky got up. “I need to make a call anyway. Tell him I’ll be back soon.”

Scully walked to the waiting room where they were allowed to make phone calls and dialed Skinner to update him on the checkout time. The call was quickly over, leaving Scully a few minutes to sit. The reality really began to sink in. Mulder couldn’t communicate thorough speech, he was depressed, and she was the only person on this side of the country who could help guide him through his recovery.

Feeling a little desperate, she closed her eyes and prayed.


	9. Chapter 9

“Mulder, you should really eat before we go.” Scully was close to pleading or giving up on this argument with him.

It had been three days since Mulder got out of the hospital, and his mood had slowly spiraled further and further down. Nothing Scully said or did got through to him. She’d leave him in the bedroom or living room alone, and that’s when he would practice speaking. He outright refused to do it in front of her, other than to say “Hey,” or one of the other few words he had little problem with.

She worries that because of this, he’s not progressing fast enough. Vicky had said that he should be gaining his capabilities back slowly but steadily, and Scully had seen no evidence of it. Was he hiding it from her? Was he just failing and afraid to face it?

But those were bigger concerns. It was the little stuff that really got to her, like how he wouldn’t eat breakfast – how we would barely eat at all.

“Come on, Mulder. You need the energy, and I won’t even berate you for eating this crap.” She enticed him with a promise of a frozen waffle if he would just get up. It was a small, pity concession she made when out shopping the day before. He’d dumped in in the cart and stalked off to wait by the door.

“Noh,” said Mulder. He drank his coffee sedately on the couch, the TV blaring the news so loud she could barely hear him. It was frustration and sensory overload all at once, and she couldn’t wait to be out in the fresh air again.

Scully gave up the fight and adjusted the oversized flannel shirt she’d taken from Mulder’s suitcase that morning. In it, she felt closer to him, closer than she was physically in the same room with him. He had completely receded from her. She didn’t bother joining him on the couch, and instead busied herself cleaning up the kitchenette.

“Ready to go?” They were heading to his first follow-up appointment with Vicky today. She had no idea how it would go, or if it would be helpful to him. She hoped he was just being stubborn and not truly stuck behind a roadblock.

As she turned to him, she was confronted with a piece of hotel stationary held in front of her face.

“ _I’m going alone_ —Mulder, no, anything could happen—”

Mulder flipped to the next page in reply, having anticipated her argument. It was a list of reasons, and she read aloud incredulously.

“ _One, I am an adult. Two, it is a short walk. Three, leave me alone_ , _I don’t need your hovering._ ” Her voice trailed off, defeated. Vicky told her not to hover, Vicky said not to crowd him. Has she been too much the last few days? She’d barely left the room, and nothing had gotten better in her presence. Maybe he needed this. Mulder craved independence as much as she did. He was walking steadily now, the vertigo and weakness gone in his legs. There was no reason for her to say no. Her shoulders dropped as she looked up at him. “Just be careful, okay? Text me when you get to her office. You know I worry about you.”

Mulder’s hard eyes softened for the first time in days, and he flipped to the next page. It simply read _Thank You._ Scully smiled, trying not to show her sadness, and reached up to kiss him on the cheek.

He gathered his jacket and left without a glance backward, and she crumbled inside.

-

She couldn’t get through to him. She’d tried too much, too often, too soon, and now she’s pushed him away entirely. She thought over the past few days.

When they’d gotten to the hotel suite after Mulder was released, he’d been tired and taken a nap almost immediately. She situated his things, then slid into bed next to him for a while, just watching him sleep and feeling thankful for him being there with her. It was moments like this that reminded her of who she had lost, that life was so fragile and so easily taken away. A dinner of soft foods, Mulder falling asleep again in front of the TV, and then an early night for both of them. He hadn’t said a word that whole day.

Then the next. Scully flinched as she thought over her actions. She _had_ been hovering. Physically, making sure he didn’t stumble, but in every other way too. Had asked him questions, had made sure he was constantly comfortable, had gone over the list of exercises with him and checked and rechecked his arm and other injuries.

She only got worse the days after. No wonder Mulder was refusing to speak around her, to try his exercises more than once. He must feel so on display, so scrutinized. So helpless. Scully did too.

Reflexively, Scully pulled Mulder’s oversized flannel tighter around her, ineffectual self-comfort.

Her stomach growled.

Food. That’s something she could do, something to do instead of wait for Mulder to come back, stare at the door until it opens. If he comes back. No, she shook her head, that was melodramatic. He would be back. She just didn’t know what he would be like when he did. The TV blared from the other room.

Food. She hadn’t eaten since the day before, too stressed and on edge. Mulder hadn’t eaten much more than that. Scully walked to the kitchenette, feeling small in her oversized top and leggings and socks. She opened the freezer and saw the box of waffles they’d bought together just days before. Scully popped two in the toaster, not caring enough to even read the nutritional label, and tidied the kitchen, wandering through to the living area, moving around clothes and towels without putting them away. She released a small bit of frustration as she violently turned off the TV, an angry click of the remote in her hands.

 

A minute later she was pulled back into the kitchenette by the smell of burning. She ran the short distance, not wanting the smoke alarm to be set off, and hit the eject button on the toaster. Unthinkingly, she reached for the waffles and nearly seared her fingers off, but managed to throw them into the sink, running cool water for the burnt mess and her fingertips at the same time.

_Goddammit_ , she thought. She almost screamed. If she can’t even do this right, how the hell is she supposed to take care of him? How is she supposed to support him through this? Her trying to make waffles ended in crying over the sink. How was she supposed to help him if she couldn’t help herself?

-

As soon as he left the hotel, Mulder felt a sense of relief, and then immediately after that, guilt. He was such an asshole, had been an asshole to Scully ever since they got to the hotel. It was like he couldn’t help it. Every time he tried to be a normal person around her, he immediately froze up. He _wasn’t_ normal. He couldn’t talk, he was hurt, he was broken. And he could bring himself to be that in front of Scully.

Instead, he was defensive and acting like a Grade A asshole to her. Wonderful.

At least he could walk to his appointment by himself. As much as he loved Scully, her presence and her hovering, was becoming oppressive. He needed the air, the feeling of autonomy. He’d been babied and tested on and accompanied all week, and he couldn’t stand it any longer. Mulder felt worthless.

His psychology degree and his common sense told him he was spiraling. The anxiety that came with this unique injury, the uncertainty about his recovery, the depression – it all compounded in his head until it felt like the end of the world was a weight pressing on his chest.

His jaw hurt. His face was black and blue. His left arm was weak. And he still couldn’t speak worth a damn.

Mulder arrived at Vicky’s office in the hospital after only a few wrong turns. He checks in at the counter by writing his name on his omnipresent notebook and showing the assistant. At least here in this speech pathology office, this was normal behavior, expected even. Almost forgetting, and still feeling like an ass, he texted Scully that he was fine and then put his phone on silent.

“Mulder? Come on back.”

He got to his feet and followed Vicky back to her office. He hadn’t been here before, she had only visited him, and he was only mildly surprised to see the sort of eastern, spiritual vibe. She had a few candles lit, ornate cloth draped to and fro, and comfortable seating.

“It’s fantastic to see you out of the hospital bed, Mulder,” said Vicky. She nestled into one of the overstuffed armchairs and adjusted her notes on the arm within easy reach of what looked like freshly brewed tea. “Would you like some tea?”

Mulder shook his head and sank into the chair opposite, not quite knowing what to expect from this visit. This didn’t look like a doctor’s office. Actually, it held a similar vibe to some of the occult and head shops he’d been in.

“Well then, I take it you are feeling better? The pain receded a bit?”

He nodded.

“Have some tea, dear. It will help your throat.” Vicky handed him the tea, smelling of spices and something sweet, and he had no choice but to accept.

Mulder took a sip, some part of him practicing politeness above his discontent, and sighed at the soothing drink. There were liberal amounts of honey, coating his throat and making him sink further into the armchair.

“Excellent. How about your speech?”

He stuck out a hand and wobbled it back and forth, then turned his hand into a thumbs-down.

“Ah, I see.” Vicky adjusted her reading glasses on her nose and Mulder could feel a shift in the air, like he was about to get yelled at or reprimanded by a teacher. “Have you been doing your exercises?”

Mulder nodded again.

“Alone?”

He hesitated, but kept nodding, taking another long sip of the honey and spice tea.

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t hear you. Speak up?” Vicky smiled, a mischievous twinkle in her eye just noticeable under the glare of her reading glasses.

Mulder sighed and began the delicate process of producing speech on the first try. He relaxed his jaw, the ache increasing as he paid more attention to it, and flexed his tongue. “Yeah.”

“Why have you been practicing away from your partner? And, please, for this session try to speak.”

Mulder refused to make eye contact, shifting in his chair as he prompted his own mouth to move. “Mmm badh.”

“Of course, you’re bad at this, you’re essentially relearning how to speak. And excellent job humming your way into that word.” Vicky’s tone was the perfect mix if chide and encouragement. “Now, I have a feeling that your jaw is still giving you pain?”

“Yeah.”

“That would likely be a result of lasting trauma to your head, which is causing tension and ache in your temporomandibular joint.” At Mulder’s look, she continued.

“The hinge of your jaw. You’ve got TMJ pain. You need to try and relax it all the time, to not tense up. Heat packs help release the tension in that area as well, so I highly recommend those over taking medication.”

Mulder nodded, adding that to the list, because damn did that hurt.

Vicky and Mulder went through more exercises and tests, seeing exactly where he stalled out and how. They went through an alphabet of sounds and work-arounds. She gave him several sheets of paper with exercises, tips, and everything he needed to do, _with Scully_ she emphasized, to get better.

“You have new rules, homework if you want, to live by. You must try to talk every time you interact with someone, even buying coffee or groceries, even if it’s just one word. Act like you can speak completely _normally_ and it will put less pressure on you to do well. Now, what would you say to me if you could speak like you used to?”

“’M naut narmal.”

“I gathered as much. Now, another more low-stakes practice is to speak with inanimate objects. This won’t make you look or feel crazy. If you think about it, this type of speech, talking to ourselves or to things is something we do all the time. We curse at the tea kettle, we reason with a jar that’s hard to open, all of that. Cursing is also easier to say, so don’t hold back on that either!”

“Beh crah-see,” Mulder said. That reply almost slipped out without him thinking about it, and he was a little surprised at the automation of it. Vicky smiled, noticing.

“Music is also helpful. Who’s your favorite artist? That you can sing along to?”

“Thsing?” he asked, a little incredulous. This woman wanted him to sing when he couldn’t say his own damn name?

“Yes. It was on the list, but I take it you haven’t tried? The function of singing comes from a different part of the brain, follows different pathways. You may be surprised to find that you can sing much better than you can speak, a sort of running before walking.”

Mulder thought about that for a moment. It made sense, he supposed. But he wasn’t about to start singing to his doctor, not this one anyway. After a second he answered her original question. “Elvsh.”

“I’m sorry, I didn’t quite understand you.” Vicky’s tone was even and honest, and he didn’t quite hate himself as much as he thought he would when he couldn’t be understood. “Why don’t you try to break that word into its syllables.”

“El-vish,” he said.

“Elvis, lovely. I’m sure your partner will enjoy that.”

Mulder had to smile at that. Scully was not what he would call a fan.

They spoke more about what he could do and how he could break down things that gave him trouble, and soon the hour-long visit was over. Vicky was highly optimistic about his recovery, and was certain that with practice and natural healing he would be back to functioning in no time.

“-unchoning?” he asked, quietly, but she understood.

“Yes, functioning. At what percent, we can’t bother to guess. I’d say at least 70 or 80 percent normal, at that’s at the very least. Your lisp, for instance, could persist. You could have long-term problems with multisyllabic words and sentences, even a stutter.”

Mulder looked shocked, and if he was being honest, a little scared. FBI Special Agents don’t speak with only eighty percent function. Paper pushers do.

“Mulder, Mulder, come back out of that spiral I see you going down.”

Mulder came to, not realizing that his eyes were unfocused and breathing labored until Vicky said something.

“I absolutely know that this is overwhelming right now, especially to think of the future, but this very moment is when you need to focus up. Progress from this type of injury mainly takes place in the first month after the incident. After that, progress is _much_ slower, and can even stagnate. So, in order to get better, you have to _get over yourself and try_. You have to _practice_. You have to rely on your partner to _help_. You have to feel stupid sometimes, and you have to own it, so you can get better.” Vicky held strong eye contact with her patient to drive her point home.

She had high hopes for Mulder, but was worried about his male ego, alongside his obvious anxiety surrounding his recovery, getting in the way. She hoped a little of her magic, her spirituality, would rub off on him. Maybe the tea worked some of its magic on him.

“Okay,” he replied, and although it sounded more like ‘oak’ than anything else, the determination in his eyes made Vicky smile.

“Excellent. Now, assuming you’ll be in the city, I’d like to see you again in about four days. You can see Theresa on the way out and schedule that with her. Verbally.”

Mulder nodded and got to his feet, feeling a little lighter, a little more confident. Having Vicky force him to speak to her, to another human and not just his own reflection in the mirror or the TV, had made a ton of difference. He’d been such an idiot, shutting Scully out. She just wanted to help.

Vicky, she – well. Something clicked in his head, something loosened in his chest. She was right, and he knew he had to step up and get better. The alternative was unthinkable.

He made the appointment with Theresa almost painlessly and headed out the door. He had to apologize to Scully, and he had to get better.


	10. Chapter 10

Scully retreated into the bedroom, too exhausted and sad to do anything else. It’s not like she had much to accomplish, anyway, she’d already overdone everything. They were stuck in Seattle until Mulder could fly back, and their reports and cases files for this trip were done and sent, mainly completed by her waiting on Mulder at the hospital. She didn’t have any journals or books to read. No cases to preview. No expense reports to correct.

She looks around the bedroom, lit only from the rare Seattle sun through the windows. She could just see the nearby water from in between the buildings and she promised herself that she’d go to the pier again before they left. Hopefully, with Mulder.

Mulder. She didn’t know what to do with him, about him, for him. After he left that morning, alone, wanting to be alone, she didn’t know what to think. Would he come back and tell her to go back home? Would he continue to be distant with her? Would he be fine?   
What was fine, to them, anyway?

She could say she was fine right then. Physically, she was. She was a little hungry, but the waffle incident had curbed her appetite. Looking through the window, she tapped her still pinked fingertips together, feeling the slight burn. Was Mulder okay? Was he doing okay with Vicky, opening up? She hoped so. His text of _I’m fine_ had arrived when it should, when she was re-organizing the small amount of food they’d bought just for something to do.

As she stood looking over the beautiful, complex city below her, she thought over the suite itself, her nervous energy still wanting an outlet. Laundry was done. Everything was tidy, even her burnt waffles had cooled and been thrown away. She had cleaned the sink and counter, emptied the toaster of crumbs that had been close to burning, put away a few shirts that had been left around. The bed was already made, a normal reflex when she woke up in the morning.

She’d played the domestic as much as she could. There was nothing to do. TV wouldn’t distract her, and her eyes hurt too much to read. She didn’t want to leave the suite until she knew Mulder was back. She tried to tamp down her anxiety. What could she do? What should she be doing? She needed to do something.

There was nothing to do.

Scully sank down onto the bed, on top of the covers, and curled up on her side facing the wall. Her side. God. They had sides of the bed. They’d had sides for weeks, ever since February. Almost two months.

Two months of this new thing between them, of their relationship. God, she hadn’t told anyone. Her mom doesn’t know. No one at work knows, they only suspect just like they always have.

Over these two months with him, close to him, loving him more fully than she’d been able to before, Scully came to an absolute conclusion. Not through rote pro/con lists, nor studious research, but just by existing in a situation long enough for a kind of covert revelation to make itself evident. This one came about over years of working alongside Mulder. By becoming his friend, his best friend, his touchstone, and vice versa. They were each other’s opposites, physically, mentally. Absolute compliments.

They would get through this, just like they’d gotten through everything else in their lives, of that she was certain. But the goal is much easier to look at than the path just before them.

Scully was suddenly hit with the realization that she misses him. She misses Mulder, and he’s been by her side all week. She aches for him, for her Mulder, for their easy banter and surprisingly sweet words. This Mulder was hurt, and she loved him all the same, but she missed having a conversation with him not moderated by pen and paper, filtered through a bad mood and resentment. 

She couldn’t tell him that, God, it would kill him. To think that he wasn’t whole, and that is what she missed—no. Scully missed _him_. Mulder existed in his mischievous smile, in the gentle caress of a guiding hand, in his soft kisses and declarations late at night, in his insane theories that drove her crazy and his absolute, unwavering goodness.

She missed him so much, and she loved him so much, and she didn’t know what to do.

Tears made a reappearance, as if they had permission to flood over as soon as Mulder couldn’t see. Tears of anger, of sadness. She let go this time, knowing she needed this emotional release if she couldn’t channel it elsewhere.

-

The air outside the hospital was fresh and the sun shone on Mulder’s skin. He found a bench and sat, just for a few minutes, decompressing from his appointment with Vicky. There was something about that woman that made him trust her, made him listen. Maybe it was her objectiveness, her quirkiness, her distractingly long red hair. When she first walked into his room, something in Mulder had thought _friend, ally_ , and he’d been right.

Vicky was right. He needed to get his shit together.

He took another deep breath of springtime Seattle air and got to his feet, newly thankful and aware of his balance and painless movement for such a simple task. He headed to the hotel, hoping he remembered the way back, and tried to prepare what he’d say to Scully.

He wishes he could say her name.

The “S” sounds were alluding him still, and it rubbed him wrong to call her Dana. _You have to try_ , Vicky’s voice in his head, a reminder. He looked around on the sidewalk and took notice that no one was paying attention to him. A blessing of being in a big city. The fact that he was a tall white guy with a face half covered in bruises probably helped that too.

So, he opened his mouth, and he tried to speak. 

“Ths—”

Fuck. The fucking lisp. He knew he had it now, as he’d tried a few times in the shower and his tongue simply would not cooperate no matter how deliberate he was with its placement. But he kept trying.

“Thsully. Daynah Thsully.”

He sighed, hating what was about to come out of his mouth, but knowing he couldn’t avoid it.

Rolling his eyes, he said it. “Foths Mul-ler.”

Fuck. His already unbearable name reduced to its worst, lispy counterpart. He hated it, absolutely hated having this stupid thing. But, just like Vicky told him, he already felt a little better. He’d been trapped in his head for a week with no escape, and now he had _something_. He could probably be understood through all of that, if he worked at it. And he was still supposed to get better, right? No singing along to Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious anytime soon—or maybe he could, actually, if Vicky’s singing theory was right. 

Best not to break out the Mary Poppins tunes on the street in broad daylight, though.

Before he realized it, he was at the entrance of the hotel. He walked straight through the lobby to the elevator, where a businessman held the door for him at the last second.

His brain skipped. Normally, he’d say thank you. That was a normal thing to do when a stranger was nice. He’d also say his floor number. A split-second decision was made as he stepped into the elevator. _You have to try_.

“Thanksh.” Whew. That wasn’t so bad. That was barely wrong, really. He pat himself on his back, a tiny spark of confidence back in his soul.

The businessman nodded as a reply, _lucky bastard can probably speak perfectly and he doesn’t even talk_ , and gestured to the buttons in front of him.

Fuck. A number. Could he say a number? He and Scully were on the twenty-third floor. There aren’t any s’s in that, but it was three syllables and he could barely manage one. Mulder panicked and chickened out, reaching awkwardly for the button himself.

The businessman got out a few floors before Mulder’s and he was left alone in the elevator. He rolled his eyes at himself and cleared his throat. “Tewn-tey-tree.”

Not as bad as he was expecting, but he was still kind of glad he didn’t say it in front of that guy. Baby steps, he thought. But steps forward, nonetheless.

When he finally gets back to the hotel room, he kicks himself a little for not bringing Scully anything. Coffee, flowers, a card that says “I’m sorry I’m such a dick.” He opens the door and is halfway into calling out to say hello before he stops himself. He knows, he knows he should try. But he can’t. Not with her name. It’s too much to mess up, not without seeing her face. How can he break it to her that he can’t even say her _name?_

He doesn’t see her immediately, taking note of the very clean living area and kitchenette. Thinking she must be taking a nap, or otherwise not there at all, he quietly moves to the bedroom.

What he finds there is much worse than an empty room.

Scully is curled up on the bed, facing away from the door, shaking from crying, and his heart breaks. He hears her breath catch on a sob and something in him breaks a little more and he heaves himself up through the self-pity cloud he’s been existing in all week. Scully is hurting, because of him.

He quickly toes off his shoes, intentionally making noise to tell her he was there, before moving to the bed and climbing in beside her.

Scully sits up and wipes her eyes, looking embarrassed. “Oh, Mulder, I’m sorry, I—”

He moved next to her and gathered her to him, bringing her head down to her shoulder. She resisted for a fraction of a second before folding into his body, needing to be held by him.

Scully buries her head in his chest, needing the contact but out of tears. It takes her a while to find her breath again, to calm down.

“I’m sorry, Mulder,” she mumbles. “It’s not you, it’s not your fault. I don’t know why I’m like this.” Scully smooths the fabric over Mulder’s chest, reveling in the feeling of being held by him. “You just, God, Mulder.” She sniffs and wipes her nose discreetly with her hand. “Please, please just work with me. I want to help. You have to tell me how.”

“Ths—” he stops, hugs her tightly. “I,” he grits his teeth around the syllable, trying to relax against the flare up of pain in his skull. She can’t even see his face and he’s still embarrassed, frustrated, angry. “Try. I, uhhh.” A breath. “Broken.” He spits out, closing his eyes even as he brings her closer. He will not cry. He will not.

He hurt Scully this week, and he hates himself for it.

She leans back, still encased in Mulder’s solid arms, strong despite everything he’s been through, and makes him look down at her in the low light. She runs a hand through his hair, down to his neck and back where she can reach. “You are not broken. Do you hear me? You,” her voice breaks, tears still escaping the edges of her eyes, but she continues. “You are just _hurt_ , and with time you will heal. You. Will. Heal. And I will be with you through it all, when you get angry or sad or frustrated, or all of the above. I’m not leaving you.” The last sentence was whispered, desperately true.

Mulder shakes, tears threatening to spill onto his still-bruised face. He looks desperate, in pain, yearning for a million things, wanting to launch into a tirade but unable to voice his thoughts.

Finally, he nods. “Th—” he tries, then resets, cocking his head and looking up at the ceiling. Scully, patient as always, waits for him. “Thanksh.” A tear finally escapes and slides down his cheek into the pillow. “I lo-love you.”

His stilted speech obviously took effort but it made Scully smile, smile even though just minutes ago she was sobbing as if the world was ending. He loved her. He’d said more in the last five minutes that he had all week, and he loved her too.

“I love you too, Mulder,” she replied in a voice that was soft but strong. “We’re going to be ok, alright?”

Mulder gathered her close again, tucking her head into his neck and he breathed in her scent, nodding gently against her hair.

This was the breakthrough Scully had been hoping for. She thanked Vicky, for whatever she said to him. She thanked Mulder, for being here right now. A glimmer of Mulder, her Mulder, determined and strong-willed as ever. She knew they’d get through this for real.  


	11. Chapter 11

Scully woke up with a headache, a hangover from crying. It was dark in the hotel room, and the digital clock told her it was just past one am. She gently extricated herself from Mulder’s sleeping body and walked quietly into the bathroom.

She downed a glass of water and then another, this time with a painkiller. She needed this rest, rest that Mulder seemed to be getting deeply, judging by the snores emanating from the bedroom. She took a brief pause at the sink and bowed her head. _Thank you, God. Thank you for him_. Every second she was grateful that this had not been their last case, that Mulder had not died at the hands of a serial killer. He was hurt, but he would make it. He would get better, and by the grace of God or Dr. Vicky or sheer luck, he wanted to make the effort.

Scully catches herself thinking too long and goes back to bed, happy to sleep by his side again. Too often this week they had trouble sleeping at the same time, or at all. Pain, stress, all of the above warred in their brains, and there was a wall too high between them for mutual comfort.

But last night, a few hours ago, the wall had come crashing down. Mulder was speaking, he was trying his best. She had cried in his arms, letting herself feel in front of him. She knew, she just felt it in her bones, that this would last. She made a mental note to send Vicky a gift basket or thank you card before they left Seattle.

Scully snuggled back under the sheets, facing away from Mulder but close enough to welcome his body. Just before she fell asleep, she felt him move in his sleep, curl around her. His full body sigh made him relaxed and heavy against her, and it was the best thing she’d felt in weeks.

-

Morning woke her not with an alarm, not with a nightmare, not with any noise at all. In fact, morning woke her gently, it allowed her to stretch her body in an empty bed, allowed a lazy roll of her head to see that it was past nine, and that Mulder wasn’t in bed with her. She listened for a moment, but didn’t hear the shower or the TV. Curious and only a little concerned, she visited the bathroom before exploring the suite.

She half expected him to be asleep on the couch, like she’d found him a lot this week, but no luck. Suddenly, a grumble came from the kitchenette. It was the coffee pot, announcing a fresh pot was done. She approaches with concern, wondering where the hell Mulder had gone, but sees a note from him instead.

_Going on a walk. Back soon. Love M._

Scully smiled. He was showing initiative. She’d had to fight him to leave before, and now he was going out alone and being thoughtful enough to make her coffee, to leave a note. As she poured, she wondered how much of this week had been lingering symptoms of his severe concussion, how much had truly been out of his control.

Most of his moods and emotions were pure Mulder. Resentment at injury, depression spirals at setbacks. But he’d been more standoffish than she’d ever experienced with him, his presence making the room darker, oppressive. But she felt none of that now, none of the lingering effects of a man with no purpose. This was the turning point.

Scully flipped on the news, only a little worried about him being alone. She hopes that soon they can go home, maybe by the end of the next week. They’ve been living out of their go-bags for far too long and as much as she loved it, she was growing tired of flannel and too-good coffee. She missed her bed, Mulder’s bed. She missed muggy D.C., she missed work. But she has what’s most precious to her, and he was on his way toward recovery.

-

Mulder was proud of his energy when he woke up. Scully was deeply asleep, and he felt like he’d had the best sleep of his life. He wanted to take a walk again, keep the energy flowing that he so desperately needed, so he set the coffee pot for Scully and left a note.

There was a tiny bodega a few blocks away, one they’d shopped at for food. That was his destination. He bought flowers for Scully, bright yellow and purple and white, the brightest and happiest flowers he could find. It was a sorry excuse as an apology, but it was a start.   
On his small journey he said as much as he could manage to everyone he interacted with. Practice, he reminded himself. Plus, he’d never see any of these people again. He gathered words and phrases in his head, a delight to say them aloud.

“Nmorningh,” he said to the doorman of the hotel.

“Thanksh,” he said to the cashier at the bodega.

“Four-teenthh?” he asked a stranger, only a little lost.

“Thwo,” he told the coffee shop owner, picking up chocolate croissants for him and Scully.

Back at the hotel, he opened the door to their room with only a little difficulty, juggling flowers and a bag of croissants. He’s tired, from the interactions and the walk, but he felt good. Alive. The opposite of how he felt in the hospital room, or even a day earlier. He made a mental note to send Vicky a thank you note or something.

“Tsh-!” Almost by reflex, he’d gone to call out Scully’s name, make a dumb Lucy joke. But he couldn’t. He was silent for a beat, mentally working past the issue.

Scully was on the couch watching something, but immediately stood. She looked at the flowers he was offering her and smiled widely.

“Oh, Mulder,” she said, “thank you, they’re beautiful.” She inhaled their sweet scent and then kissed him gently. He suddenly wished he could come home every day like that. Maybe he could.

Scully quickly found a large glass to place her flowers in, letting them take center stage on a side table by the couch. Mulder detoured to the kitchen to pour himself coffee, and then he sat the bag of sweets down next to him and motioned for Scully to join him on the couch.

They ate their croissants drizzled in chocolate with gusto, sipping coffee and watching the end of the morning news program together in silence. He wanted to talk, to comment on the stupid commercials playing or the absurd news. But he didn’t know where to start. Luckily, he didn’t have to wait for too long.

“Mulder?” Scully clicked off the TV and turned on the cushion to look at him.

“Mmhmm?”

“Thank you for breakfast, and the flowers. They’re lovely.”

Mulder smiles in response, happy to have accomplished his goal for the morning.

“And last night – I can’t tell you how grateful I am that you’re here. And now, you seem… different.” This was awkward for her, walking on eggshells. She didn’t want to say the wrong thing. “More… willing to try. With me helping. Am – am I right?”

Mulder caught himself mid-nod and opened his mouth with effort. “Yeah,” he said easily. “You’rah wwite.”

“Good,” she stressed. “Good, I’m glad. I want to talk about something.

_That was quick_ , thought Mulder with some humor.

“Mulder, I’ve, uh, noticed something, with your speech so far.” She hoped she wasn’t being too pushy, but they needed to talk about it together.

Mulder makes a noise low in his throat to acknowledge her. He felt okay with this so far, if a little uncomfortable. But Vicky was right, he had to talk in front of her, talk about this. Heal with her help, because as much as he wanted to do it alone he knew he couldn’t. It sounded easier in his head.

“It seems to me that you are avoiding ‘S’ sounds, and when you try they all lisp and you give up.”

Mulder sighed in response, offering a slightly bitter smile and a shrug as if to say ‘you’ve got me, Scully!’

“I’ve read about it, talked about with Vicky.” Scully reached her hand up to the side of his face that hit the wall, delicately stroking the still mottled and yellow skin, trying to draw his eye as she begins to speak. Her words came out in a rush, wanting to get through it all.

“The research says it’s normal, after an injury to your head and jaw like you’ve sustained, to have a lisp. It’s usually temporary and physical. Your mouth and tongue were injured too, even laterally with your skull injuries, and it sort of knocked everything out of alignment. As everything heals it will likely disappear, but only if you work on it, only if you actually try to say the ‘s’ words even with the lisp. You’ve got to work the injured muscles so they don’t atrophy forever, so that the skills can come back.”

“Ugh,” Mulder deadpanned. 

Scully smiled in response, but became serious again. “What’s got you so upset about this in particular? That you don’t try?”

Mulder worried his lips and didn’t say anything.

“It’s no worse than recovering the rest of your speech. A lisp is just part of that—" she was cut off by a syllable, but she didn’t make out what he said. “What was that?”

He tried again, this time louder. “Foths.” He pointed at himself. “Foths Mul-ler.”

Scully realized he was trying to say his own name and felt horrible that he couldn’t while simultaneously thinking that the was he said it was adorable.

She was about to speak again when he started to, the rush of emotion making it a little easier to speak.

“When, young. Lithle. I.” A frustrated sigh. “Foths.”

Scully took just a second to interpret Mulder speak. “You had a lisp as a child?

He nodded, his lips pursed together. He suddenly wished for a shot of strong liquor.

Understanding a little better now, Scully resettled herself into his side and he pulled her closer with his arm, still not looking at her.

“Well,” she said after a while. “I hate to say it but, Mulder, it’s kind of cute.”

He whipped toward her, askance, an eyebrow raised. “What.” he said in a flat tone.

“I’m serious!” she giggled a little. “Thinking of a little you, introducing yourself on the playground to other kids with your lisp. It’s adorable.”

Mulder rolled his eyes but couldn’t hide the beginning of a smile.

“I know the other kids probably didn’t think so, but to me it’s perfect. That’s probably part of the reason you don’t like your name, isn’t it?”

He hummed an agreement. It was part of a long, long list.

“Ths-“ he stumbled. “Dammit,” he muttered instead, looking for strength in the ceiling above him. Why couldn’t her name be a curse word? Those had no problem on his tongue. Finally, he just let it out. “Thsully.”

She backed away from him and for a moment he thought she was disappointed in him, and it showed on his face, but suddenly she pivoted her hips so she could straddle him on the couch. Scully hung her head, hovering her lips above his as they touched foreheads.

“That’s me,” she exhaled.

They shared a tentative smile. This was the first time Scully had initiated anything other than kisses or hugs since before the case even began and they both felt undeservedly nervous.

She leaned down and kissed him gently, and then backed away with his face in her hands expectantly.

“I’m not hurting you am I?”

Mulder cracked a lopsided smile and opened his mouth, feeling clumsy but determined, and uttered her name again.

“ _Thsully_.”

Scully rewarded him with another kiss, deepening it this time. She explored his mouth like it was the first time they kissed, but now as if she was trying to heal him from the inside out, accepting him and loving him.

Mulder’s hands smoothed up her sides, bringing her sleep shirt up, the scent of fabric softener wafting between them, his thumbs toying with the sides of her breasts as she settled further on to him.

“Mulder,” she breathed, breaking apart and kissing across his jaw, down his neck to that spot under his ear that made him groan. They’d gone without for far too long.

He tugged her closer until their centers met and he bucked, helpless at the contact. “Oh, Thsully.” He brought her mouth to his again, ignoring his lingering aches, and carefully rolled them both over so she was under him on the couch and returned the favor of kissing down her neck. It was the strongest he’d felt since the attack, the best he’d felt in weeks with her in his arms once more.

Scully threaded her hands through his hair, careful of any tender areas and guiding him to places that make her cry out.

Mulder felt like a new man, revitalized by Scully’s words and acceptance. He loved her so much, had loved her forever—he should have known that she would be so… so perfect with this. Even when he was acting like an asshole, which was only partially to blame on the brain trauma.

Peeling off her sleep clothing to reveal her soft, even skin was a balm on his shattered nerves. They made love on the couch, reunited with groans and declarations – silence and touch. A hard Seattle rain pounded against the windows, washing the city clean once more.

-

The next few days followed a new pattern. Communication between them was deliberately forced from both sides as Scully provoked Mulder with topics he couldn’t help but respond to. It was like a game, fun and frustrating at the same time, but always moving toward progress.

“I don’t see how an entire species of sasquatch, as you call them, could survive world-wide with no scientific proof, Mulder.”

“Proogh! Foot-prinnsh, Tshully! C-Corpshes! _Video!”_

That particular topic resulted in a five-minute rant, most of which was discernable to Scully. But she’d heard that particular speech before.

She asked him a million questions. They left the hotel a lot, Mulder finding it easier to speak with more people around as if the white noise of humanity made it less horrible to make a mistake. His phrases and simple words turned into stilted sentences within days, each one requiring a little less effort on his part.

“Tscully, doyou waaant coff-eh?” he gestured to one of the Starbucks in immediate sight.

To their mutual pain, she made him sing. Anything that was on the radio that he knew, or could at least hum to. And it seemed to help, seemed to loosen up his vocal cords and tongue and jaw, seemed to help bypass the parts of his brain that were hurting him.

But, God. At what cost. 

One night, when the rain was too hard and cold to go out, they found a movie channel and raided the minibar. Mulder was off all of his medications, and they both hadn’t indulged in some time.

The situation quickly deteriorated as soon as Scully came up with a game that would double as speech therapy, according to the list Vicky sent along with Mulder at his most recent appointment.

“The Swear Game.”

“Theh what?”

“I just made it up,” Scully said a little too loudly, the alcohol warming her. “We go through the alphabet and each come up with a swear or – or something _dirty_ for each letter.”

Mulder laughed along with Scully.

“Come on! It’ll help with your voice thingy – I’ll start. Ass.”

“Atch-hole.”

“Bitch.”

“Bonerh.”

“Cock.” Scully made eye contact on that one. 

“Cum.” Mulder parried.

The game quickly fell to the wayside before they made it to H, and the wide and comfortable couch was once again used to its full potential.

Mulder was getting better, and he was getting better fast with Scully. His hesitation in speech was diminishing quickly, and he soon started to sound like his old self, at least in cadence. His lisp stuck around, but he used new techniques and practices to make working around it seem natural. He wouldn’t have bothered had Scully not been there to cheer him on.


	12. Chapter 12

Only a few months ago, Scully had gotten used to the idea of being a purely career-oriented woman forever, to committing herself fully to finding the truth, to the X-files, to Mulder’s journey that had become her own. To being alone, living in her Georgetown apartment indefinitely, to not committing to another living thing (after Queequeg, even non-humans seemed off the table) and devoting herself fully and forever to the cause.

Was it a sacrificial position? Maybe. She reasoned that she could, hypothetically, be more selfish. She could take more than the occasional weekend respite from work, or even take her career down a completely different path. After all, it isn’t exactly unheard of to switch careers or leave a highly dangerous profession like the FBI after a few years.

Besides, dammit, this wasn’t the only thing Scully had going for her! She was a medical doctor, after all, which astounded small-town misogynists all over the country. Yes, Scully was competent, dangerous, feminine, intelligent, intuitive, fashionable and competitive. She could do whatever she damn well pleased.

Hypothetically.

Because then, after years in the basement with Mulder and learning more and more about a field she had grown up dismissing without a thought, she was ready to give up any other possibility and commit to the truth. Not that there were many possibilities left.

It was freeing, this revelation, to make this decision to commit, thought Scully. No more worries about the future. No regrets moving forward. No what ifs, no lonely-heart ice cream benders. Right? Plenty of women in all different walks of life were alone for all of it by choice or circumstance, with only their careers and friends and family around them to witness their existence. Scully didn’t need to legally commit to another person or pass on her DNA to the next generation to be successful.

Scully’s commitment would be for the betterment of humanity, to the uncovering of the truth, to the debunking of myth and craziness and to the discovery of scientific basis behind the horrors that take place all over America and the world.

And then, and then, weeks after coming to this absolute decision, she completely lost her mind and kissed Fox Mulder on her couch the day after her birthday because he was being _too sweet_. And months later, her new commitment finally felt right.

-

They sat on her couch, finally back from Seattle with a few days of paid leave left. Mulder had improved rapidly with his healing brain and body, and their relationship had gotten stronger with the trouble.

Mulder turned to her, kissing her sweetly on the head before speaking up. “What if, never back?”

Scully sighed, content to be home, confident in a way to assuage his worry. “It doesn’t matter, Mulder. Not to me.” She turned to him, looking into his worried eyes.

He still had his job by virtue and determination of Vicky back in Seattle. But he was still worried, deep down, that he wasn’t a whole person any longer. As much as he had improved, as good as his long-term recovery looked – he would maybe never regain his former easy loquaciousness. 

"Can't talk, can't interra-gate. Can't p-p-prove." Mulder sighed. "Can't mmmmonologue mmmy the-or-iesh."

Scully kissed him again, more than aware of his hang-ups. But she could see his progress clearly from the outside. Scully paused a beat, gathering her words.

“They’re all just... empty words. We can understand each other without speaking, we always have.” Scully took a shaky breath, overwhelmed with the desperation that comes with trying to convince someone that they are cared for, loved, unconditionally. “I love you, Mulder. Nothing’s going to change that.”

Mulder nodded against her head and burrowed his face into the sweet-smelling junction of her neck and collarbone.

_“Love.”_ He forced out, choked up with stress and emotion, a release of everything he'd felt for months. “Love love love.”

Scully tightened her hold around his neck, wanting to bring him impossibly closer, to surround him with her until he felt okay again, and knowing intrinsically that someday, someday soon, he would.

**Author's Note:**

> follow us on tumblr @viceversawrites and @cryptidneet !!!


End file.
